Netflix, Meta dumped by hedge funds as tech sell-off continues
2022.05.17 00:08
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FILE PHOTO: A Netflix logo is shown on a TV screen ahead of a Swiss vote on a referendum called “Lex Netflix” in this illustration taken May 9, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
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By David Randall and Carolina Mandl
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Tiger Global Management, Winslow Capital Management, and Scopus Asset Management were among funds that sold all of their shares of streaming company Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) before the company reported its first loss of subscribers in over a decade in March, according to securities fillings released Monday.
The move away from Netflix, whose stock price is down 69% for the year to date, comes as fund managers reassess large technology companies which rallied following the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and helped power the benchmark S&P 500 to record highs.
The S&P 500 is now down nearly 16% for the year to date, while the Russell 1000 Growth index, which is more focused on technology companies, is down nearly 25% over the same period.
Hedge fund Light Street sold all its 149,025 shares in Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc and 7,960 shares in Netflix. It almost halved its stake in Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc and trimmed its exposure to Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), reducing it by 10% in the quarter that ended in March, filings show.
Hitchwood Capital Management LP, meanwhile, sold all of its 390,000 shares of Meta, while Dan Sundheim’s D1 Capital also reduced its stake in Amazon by 22%, to 198,433 shares, and Melvin Capital sold all of its 850,000 shares of Meta.
Securities filings known as 13-Fs are one of the few public ways to see what hedge funds and other institutional investors hold in their portfolios, though they are backward-looking and do not reveal current positions.
Despite the broad move away from technology, some hedge funds added to their positions in select companies. Farallon Capital Management added 698,195 shares of Meta, whose shares are down 40.5% for the year so far.
Coatue Management, meanwhile, increased its number of shares in Meta Platforms Inc by 18.2% in the first quarter, to 2,797,896. It also bought more shares in Netflix, ending March with 1,438,956 shares, or 54.5% more than in December.
