News:

  • What did hedge funds buy last quarter? : A number of hedge funds and money managers looked to pick up beaten-down growth stocks, such as tech, in Q2.  Among the big-name disclosures, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) boosted its stake in Activision (ATVI) to ~68.4M shares from 64.3M. Soros Fund Management made a new investment in Tesla (TSLA) (29.9K shares). David Tepper’s Appaloosa took new positions in Salesforce (CRM), buying 200K shares, Alibaba (BABA), acquiring 100K shares, and Netflix (NFLX), with 50K shares, during Q2. Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater started positions in Rivian (RIVN) and Amazon (AMZN). Dan Loeb’s Third Point Capital revealed a new stake of 1M shares in Disney (DIS) in its filing.
  • Wedbush raises Apple price target to $220: A Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives has raised the price target on Apple (AAPL) to $220 per share, from the prior $200, which is a new Street-high. “We believe the initial order for 90 million iPhone 14 units out of the gates has stayed firm and will be roughly flat with iPhone 13 despite the macro storm clouds,” the analyst said in a client note. Wedbush analysts estimate that almost 25% of 1 billion iPhone users globally are yet to upgrade their phones. This will help the Cupertino-based titan ramp up iPhone deliveries with the analyst seeing 220 million iPhone units in FY23 as a “low bar” for the company to beat.
     
  • Streaming Beats Cable in July for the first time: Americans spent more time watching streaming programming on platforms such as Netflix (NFLX), Google’s YouTube (GOOGL) and Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max (WBD) than watching cable or broadcast TV for the first time in July, according to Nielsen data. Total time spent streaming rose 22.6% from last year. Viewers averaged nearly 191 billion minutes a week streaming content in July. Netflix, Walt Disney-controlled Hulu (DIS), YouTube, and Amazon.com’s Prime Video each captured record-high shares in July, beating their June records. Netflix was the most-watched streaming service, with 8% of July’s streaming, boosted by nearly 18 billion minutes viewing Stranger Things.
     

The stock market’s four-week winning streak came to an end, in reaction to an overbought market that was due for a pullback. After Wall Street’s impressive recent rally and with central bank tightening in the pipeline, traders saw an opportunity to trim back positions. For the week, the S&P 500 fell 1.2% and the Dow Jones average ticked 0.2% lower while the Nasdaq Composite slid 2.6%.