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Early Insights From 13F Day: Qualcomm, Yum, Pioneer Natural

By Kurt Osterberg · On May 15, 2015

by Stock Pucker

It’s here, 13F day that is; in working up the suite of activist investor focused newsletters to go out in a few days, it’s hard not to get distracted by the various other 13Fs from value investors like Seth Klarman coming across the wire. If you want to get a look at last quarter’s major activist newsletter, drop us a line, but here are some things that have caught my eye thus far…

There’s a Seth Klarman vs. David Einhorn battle brewing. Einhorn pitched a “short the frackers” thesis at Sohn last week. His main target was the mother fracker, Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD). Klarman revealed that he has it as a top 5 position.

Dan Loeb and Third Point blew out of their Alibaba (BABA) position, which was a top 4 position that it had just initiated last quarter. We got to see just how big his Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) position was, and it’s not all that huge – coming in at its 14th largest position. Recall, Loeb and Corvex have talked about Yum over the last few weeks – Corvex wants to split it up.

We got to see just how big a position Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) is for JANA Partners and as expected, it’s the fund’s top equity holdings. Although, JANA did quadruple its put position on the SPY.