With the latest round of 13F filings released over the past month, investors and market watchers alike are interested in seeing where the major hedge fund managers are finding value opportunities.
Background
Managers with more than $100 million in assets under management are required to disclose their holdings to the SEC each quarter via 13F filings. These filings are due 45 days after the quarter end date. For fourth-quarter 2023, that means managers must disclose all qualifying assets held on Dec. 31, 2023 by Feb. 15, 2024. Qualifying assets include long positions in U.S. equities and ADRs, call/put options and convertible debt securities. Shorts, cash positions, foreign investments and other assets are not included.
Investors can take advantage of these 13F filings to create portfolios from managers that have proven past success. Despite the 45-day delay in reporting, research has shown that investing alongside a single manager or group of managers can outperform the market. The key is to identify the best and most consistent funds to copy.
The statistics in this report are based on our Premium gurus. These gurus are our hand-picked, best-performing value investors that have proven long-term records.
Tech winners make up the Aggregated Portfolio
The GuruFocusAggregated Portfolio, a Premium feature based on these managers' quarterly filings, shows the 10 most broadly held stocks as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023 included some Magnificent Seven names that were also popular in the previous quarter, such as software giant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT, Financial) and Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, Financial).
| Ticker | Company | No. of Guru Owners | No. of Buys | No. of Sells |
| MSFT | Microsoft Corp. | 59 | 11 | 43 |
| GOOGL | Alphabet Inc. | 54 | 14 | 34 |
| META | Meta Platforms Inc. | 51 | 20 | 30 |
| AMZN | Amazon.com Inc. | 46 | 18 | 25 |
| BRK.B | Berkshire Hathaway Inc. | 37 | 9 | 22 |
| UNH | UnitedHealth Group Inc. | 36 | 13 | 20 |
| BAC | Bank of America Corp. | 34 | 15 | 16 |
| CMCSA | Comcast Corp. | 34 | 8 | 19 |
| AAPL | Apple Inc. | 33 | 10 | 20 |
| WFC | Wells Fargo & Co. | 32 | 5 | 24 |
Other big names among Guru Hot Picks
While these stocks are quite popular overall, they did not all necessarily see the heaviest guru buying activity during the three months ended Dec. 31. According to GuruFocusHot Picks, that honor only goes to a handful of companies, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA, Financial), Elevance Health Inc. (ELV, Financial) and Citigroup Inc. (C, Financial). However, several of these 10 companies also recorded a lot of selling activity over the same period.
| Ticker | Company | Buys | Sells | No. of Guru Owners |
| META | Meta Platforms Inc. | 20 | 29 | 50 |
| AMZN | Amazon.com Inc. | 18 | 24 | 45 |
| BABA | Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. | 14 | 11 | 26 |
| GOOGL | Alphabet Inc. | 14 | 32 | 51 |
| DIS | The Walt Disney Co. | 14 | 14 | 30 |
| C | Citigroup Inc. | 14 | 11 | 28 |
| TSM | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. | 14 | 13 | 29 |
| ELV | Elevance Health Inc. | 14 | 11 | 26 |
| BAC | Bank of America Corp. | 14 | 15 | 32 |
| TMO | Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. | 14 | 8 | 23 |
Consensus Picks contain a mix of stocks
Then there are those stocks that were bought by at least two gurus during the quarter, but did not record any sells. GuruFocusConsensus Picks shows these companies included names like John Wiley & Sons Inc. (WLY, Financial) and Orla Mining Ltd. (ORLA, Financial).
| Ticker | Company | No. of Buys | No. of Guru Owners |
| VYX | NCR Voyix Corp. | 7 | 7 |
| WLY | John Wiley & Sons Inc. | 6 | 6 |
| CHX | ChampionX Corp. | 6 | 6 |
| PERI | Perion Network Ltd. | 6 | 6 |
| VVX | V2X Inc. | 5 | 5 |
| PDS | Precision Drilling Corp. | 5 | 5 |
| MRVI | Maravi LifeSciences Holdings Inc. | 5 | 5 |
| KMPR | Kemper Corp. | 5 | 5 |
| SMRT | SmartRent Inc. | 5 | 6 |
| ORLA | Orla Mining Ltd. | 5 | 5 |
A brief look at selling activity
On the sell side, GuruFocus Hot Picks found investors were shedding shares of a number of companies as well. While Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI, Financial) and VMware Inc. (VMW, Financial), among several other stocks, are listed, they were not necessarily sold. Rather, these companies were acquired or merged with other companies and, therefore, are recorded as a sale in our database. As such, Rivian Automotive Inc. (RIVN, Financial) actually recorded the largest number of sell transactions for the period.
| Ticker | Company | Buys | Sells | No. of Guru Owners |
| RIVN | Rivian Automotive Inc. | 0 | 9 | 8 |
| SF | Stifel Financial Corp. | 0 | 9 | 6 |
| RS | Reliance Inc. ` | 0 | 8 | 8 |
| TFX | Teleflex Inc. | 0 | 8 | 7 |
| SDZNY | Sandoz Group AG | 0 | 8 | 0 |
| WAT | Waters Corp. | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| NEWR | New Relic Inc. | 0 | 7 | 1 |
| AYI | Acuity Brands Inc. | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| GWW | W.W. Grainger Inc. | 0 | 6 | 5 |
| CBT | Cabot Corp. | 0 | 6 | 4 |
Analysis of Industry Trends
As for gurus' investments within individual sectors, the GuruFocusIndustry Trends page shows the heaviest buying occurred in the software industry, driven by the recent craze for artificial intelligence technology. However, several other industries saw good numbers as well.
| Industry | No. of Buys | No. of Sells | No. of Holdings |
| Software | 323 | 341 | 1,069 |
| Biotechnology | 276 | 300 | 856 |
| Banks | 172 | 201 | 699 |
| Oil & Gas | 159 | 203 | 748 |
| REITs | 150 | 186 | 471 |
| Retail- Cyclical | 134 | 179 | 463 |
| Consumer Packaged Goods | 105 | 105 | 355 |
| Hardware | 100 | 133 | 470 |
| Insurance | 96 | 96 | 392 |
| Medical Devices & Instruments | 93 | 129 | 421 |
International exposure
Beyond the U.S., GuruFocus'Geographic Trends shows other areas of the world where gurus found potential value opportunities.
| Country | No. of Buys | No. of Sells |
| United States | 118 | 115 |
| China | 40 | 50 |
| Canada | 27 | 26 |
| United Kingdom | 26 | 27 |
| Hong Kong | 24 | 28 |
| Ireland | 18 | 22 |
| Bermuda | 17 | 14 |
| Taiwan | 16 | 12 |
| Switzerland | 14 | 22 |
| Netherlands | 11 | 16 |
You can see their overall exposure to different countries in the map below.
During the quarter, a number of well-known gurus were also making large bets ininternational companies by either entering new positions or expanding their existing holdings. For example, Fairfax's Prem Watsa (Trades, Portfolio) boosted his stake in Canada's Orla Mining. Spain's Azvalor also established holdings in Endeavour Mining PLC (TSX:EDV, Financial) (LSE:EDV) and Barrick Gold (GOLD, Financial) for two of its funds.
| Ticker | Company | Guru | Impact | No. of Shares |
| TSX:EDV | Endeavour Mining PLC | Azvalor Internacional FI (Trades, Portfolio) | +5.55% | 4.53 million |
| LSE:EDV | Endeavour Mining PLC | Azvalor Blue Chips FI (Trades, Portfolio) | +4.82 % | 160,903 |
| LSE:TLW | Tullow Oil PLC | Azvalor Blue Chips FI (Trades, Portfolio) | +4.62% | 6.95 million |
| LTS:0QGU | CNH Industrial NV | David Herro (Trades, Portfolio) | +3.71% | 60.30 million |
| GOLD | Barrick Gold Corp. | Azvalor Internacional FI (Trades, Portfolio) | +3.57% | 8.43 million |
| GOLD | Barrick Gold Corp. | Azvalor Blue Chips FI (Trades, Portfolio) | +3.22% | 310,791 |
| STX | Seagate Technology Holdings PLC | Stanley Druckenmiller (Trades, Portfolio) | +3.06% | 2.12 million |
| TSE:6098 | Recruit Holdings Co. Ltd. | Matthews Japan Fund (Trades, Portfolio) | +3.03% | 463,000 |
| CP | Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. | Sarah Ketterer (Trades, Portfolio) | +2.98% | 5.56 million |
| XTER:BMW | Bayerische Motoren Werke AG | Bestinfond (Trades, Portfolio) | +2.80% | 343,501 |
What about ETFs?
As for exchange-traded funds, gurus appeared to be loading up on exposure to indexes like the Standard & Poor's 500.
| Ticker | ETF | No. of Guru Owners | No. of Guru Buys | No. of Guru Sells |
| SPY | S&P 500 ETF Trust | 18 | 10 | 8 |
| GLD | SPDR Gold Shares ETF | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| XLF | Financial Select Sector SPDR | 9 | 5 | 3 |
| GDX | VanEck Gold Miners ETF | 8 | 4 | 5 |
| IVV | iShares Core S&P 500 ETF | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| XLU | Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF | 7 | 4 | 4 |
| IWM | iShares Russell 2000 ETF | 7 | 6 | 2 |
| RSP | Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF | 7 | 6 | 3 |
| XLK | Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF | 7 | 5 | 3 |
| XLE | The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund | 7 | 5 | 3 |
Value opportunities can be found
Even as the market continues to grapple with inflation and rising interest rates, not to mention geopolitical conflicts and an upcoming presidential election that is sure to be contentious, gurus' trading activity proves there are plenty of investment opportunities available in the current environment.
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