Apple is not as popular with hedge funds as other tech stocks. Even though Apple is a “big five” technology company, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note that it’s not in the “top five” holdings by hedge funds, according to news from CNBC.
The note contains a list of 50 stocks that appear most frequently in the top 10 holdings of fundamentally driven hedge funds. Apple takes the eleventh spot on the list and is a top 10 holding in 34 hedge funds. By comparison, Amazon is the most popular tech stock with hedge funds — as a top 10 holding in 80 funds.
Facebook appears as a top 10 holding in 70 hedge funds, while Alphabet is a top holding in 54 hedge funds. Microsoft follows as a top holding in 52 funds.
Still, the news comes as Apple beat on earnings and revenue expectations for its first fiscal quarter of 2018, thanks to higher-than-expected device prices. But iPhone sales by unit — the engine driving the Apple machine — missed expectations, and guidance for the quarter ending in March also came in below forecasts.
By the numbers, Apple reported revenue of $88.3 billion with a profit of $3.39 per share. That’s compared to Wall Street’s predictions of $87.3 billion and profits of $3.86 per share, up from the $78.4 billion and $3.36 per share registered a year earlier, respectively.
The better-than-expected revenue result was driven by an average selling price for iPhones that came in ahead of predictions. After all, the average price of an iPhone during the quarter was $796 versus expectations of $756.
Apple’s services business — which includes Apple Music, the App Store and the iCloud — grew 18 percent to $8.4 billion. That was a slight miss, though, as analysts were looking for $8.6 billion. Apple CFO Luca Maestri said the lower services revenue came about because the holiday quarter was only 13 weeks rather than 14. It was down slightly from $8.5 billion the quarter before, though Apple CEO Tim Cook maintained the sector is on pace to meet and surpass the goals the firm has set for its progress.
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