Greenlight Capital Q2 Letter: New Positions in Applied Materials, Bank of New York Mellon

David Einhorn's hedge fund Greenlight Capital is out with its second quarter letter.  Greenlight returned (1.5)% in Q2 and year-to-date is (3.3)%.  Their average exposure was 103% long and 86% short, leaving them net long only 17%.  The letter details numerous recent portfolio moves:

New long positions: Applied Materials (AMAT), Bank of New York Mellon (BK), CNX Coal Resources (CNXC)

Sold long positions: Altice (AMS:ATC), Conn's (CONN), EMC (EMC), Marvell Technology (MRVL), Nokia (NOK), Playtech (LON:PTEC)

Covered shorts: Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Vale (VALE)

Einhorn talks about all of the positions in the letter and also gives commentary on Micron (MU), one of his biggest positions that has sold-off recently.

At the end of Q2, Greenlight's largest positions in alphabetical order were: Apple (AAPL), CONSOL Energy (CNX), General Motors (GM), gold, Micron Technology (MU), and SunEdison (SUNE).

Embedded below is Greenlight's Q2 letter:

   Greenlight Q2 15

ValueWalk first posted the letter.

Hoplite Capital Adds to H&R Block Stake: Q3 Letter

John Lykouretzos' hedge fund Hoplite Capital is out with its Q3 letter.  In it, we see that they added to positions in Sea World Entertainment (SEAS), Monster Beverage (MNST), and H&R Block (HRB) during Q3 as shares sold off but their theses remain unchanged. 

HRB is their largest position and Lykouretzos writes,

"While HRB has recently announced that it will no longer be selling its bank to Republic Bancorp, we are confident they will either sell the bank or shut it down and pursue a more shareholder-friendly capital structure."

The hedge fund also exited their stake in Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) during the quarter as their thesis was incorrect.

This year, ISRG shares tumbled from $500 down to $420 after the second quarter and then continued to cascade to current levels of $369.  Numerous other prominent hedge funds like Viking Global were long shares of ISRG at the end of the Q2 so we'll have to wait and see if others sold in Q3 when the next batch of 13F filings come out.

Some of Hoplite's shorts include a semiconductor manufacturer and a wireless telecom operator in an emerging market.  They've recently added to shorts in companies that supply equipment to mining companies or that have exposure to mining in general and these are some of their top shorts.

Their Q3 letter also mentions that they were short a "handset manufacturer" that spiked when part of the company was acquired, and we assume that this position was Nokia (NOK).  As we detailed this week, Dan Loeb's Third Point bought NOK recently.

At the end of Q3, Hoplite had gross exposure of 150.7% and was 54.9% net long.


For more of the latest hedge fund letters, head to:

- Greenlight Capital's Q3 letter

- Third Point's Q3 letter

- Cobalt Capital's Q3 letter

- Corsair Capital's Q3 letter

Viking Global Increases Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) Position

Andreas Halvorsen's hedge fund firm Viking Global Investors has filed a 13G with the SEC regarding shares of Intuitive Surgical (ISRG).  Per the filing, Viking has disclosed a 5.1% ownership stake in ISRG with 2,029,353 shares.

This marks around a 10% increase in the amount of shares they own since the end of the first quarter in March.  This filing was required due to portfolio activity on May 10th.

Viking over doubled its stake in ISRG during the first quarter and it's now one of their largest holdings.  Shares have fallen from $580 down to as low as $455 and currently trade around $485.  As such, ISRG shares are likely trading at or even below levels where the hedge fund was buying.

To see what other US stocks Viking Global has invested in, check out the brand new issue of our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter that was just released yesterday.

Per Google Finance, Intuitive Surgical is "designs, manufactures and markets da Vinci Surgical Systems and related instruments and accessories. A da Vinci Surgical System consists of a surgeon’s console, a patient-side cart and a high performance vision system. The da Vinci Surgical System translates a surgeon’s natural hand movements, which are performed on instrument controls at a console, into corresponding micro-movements of instruments positioned inside the patient through small incisions, or ports. The da Vinci Surgical System is designed to provide its operating surgeon with intuitive control, range of motion, fine tissue manipulation capability and three dimensional (3-D), high-definition (HD) vision while simultaneously allowing the surgeon to work through the small ports of MIS."

For more resources on this fund, we've also posted up a rare interview with Andreas Halvorsen.