Light Street Capital Management endured a sharp setback in July. The Tiger Grandcub headed by Glen Kacher posted a 9.2 percent loss in its long-short fund, which pared its return for the year to 40.3 percent, according to a person who has seen the results. The long-only fund lost 3.6 percent in July but is still up 31.9 percent for the year, the source says.
Light Street remains one of the top-performing hedge funds this year in what has become a volatile environment for stocks, especially the tech and internet stocks Light Street has favored and which drove the fund’s huge returns in the first half of the year.
Institutional Investor previously pointed out that Light Street is bullish on artificial intelligence and on semiconductor companies deemed to be big AI plays. At the end of the first quarter, AI was the theme of three of the four largest U.S.-listed longs, accounting for roughly one-third of U.S. assets. (Second-quarter 13F filings are not expected until late next week.)
At the end of the first quarter, the firm’s largest long position was Nvidia, accounting for 17 percent of the U.S. long portfolio; Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the second-largest long, represented about 14 percent of U.S. assets after Light Street boosted its stake by about 45 percent in the first quarter; and Advanced Micro Devices, the fourth-largest long, made up 6 percent of assets after Light Street halved its position in the quarter. The non-chip stock among the top four longs is Amazon.
Other Tiger-related funds fared much better in July but still greatly lag both Light Street and the overall market.
For example, O. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global Equities lost just 10 basis points in July and is up 8.15 percent for the year, according to someone who has seen the results.
Viking has taken a different tack in its stock portfolio, generally eschewing the most widely held tech and internet companies among hedge funds. At the end of March, its three largest U.S.-listed longs were Visa, software maker Workday, and Amazon.
Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management dropped 1.9 percent in July, trimming its gain for the year to 10.7 percent, reports someone who has seen the results. Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Microsoft combined to account for nearly one-third of U.S.-listed assets at the end of the first quarter.
Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management suffered a 3.6 percent decline in July and is now up 5.66 percent for the year, according to published reports. Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft were the three largest U.S. long positions at the end of March. TSMC was the fifth largest after the hedge fund firm built most of its position during the quarter.