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By Carolina Mandl
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge fund Coatue Management dissolved its stake in Apple Inc in the first quarter while Viking Global Investors built a sizeable new position, securities filings showed on Wednesday. Coatue, founded by Philippe Laffont, had 2.4 million shares of Apple in December, worth $470.6 million. Regulatory filings showed it had dissolved that stake entirely by the end of March.
Apple's shares plunged almost 11% in the first quarter as the company faced fiercer competition in China and falling revenues. Shares in the iPhone maker have pared losses in the second quarter and are now down 1.5% year to date. Other big investors have cut their stakes in Apple. Earlier this month, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway said it had trimmed its position by 13%. Still, Buffett praised the company during Berkshire's annual meeting, saying the iPhone was "one of the greatest products." Coatue's filing also showed it reduced its stake in chipmaking giant Nvidia by roughly 68% to 1.4 million shares, or $1.2 billion. Year to date, shares in Nvidia are up 91%.
Coatue also trimmed its position in electric vehicle maker Tesla by 37% to 2.6 million shares. The company's shares are down almost 30% this year amid fierce competition and slowing sales. Coatue, however, more than doubled its holdings in Google-parent Alphabet, to 5.7 million shares. Conversely, Viking showed in the filing a new $663.8 million stake in Apple and a similar position in Microsoft.
The funds' positions were revealed in quarterly securities fillings known as 13Fs. While backward looking, these snapshots show what funds owned on the last day of the quarter and are one of the few ways hedge funds and other institutional investors have to declare their positions. The filings do not indicate exact timing of purchases or sales and may not reflect current holdings.
Both Coatue and Viking are so-called Tiger cubs, hedge funds seeded by veteran investor Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management.
(Reporting by Carolina Mandl, in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)
