UnitedHealth was among the stocks that made the coveted Goldman Sachs “Hedge Fund VIP” basket last quarter as professional traders piled into the beaten-down insurer. The Wall Street bank analyzed the holdings of 981 fundamentally driven hedge funds with $3.8 trillion of gross equity positions at the end of the second quarter, based on regulatory filings. It then compiled a basket of the most popular long positions, consisting of 50 stocks that most frequently appear among hedge funds’ 10-largest holdings. This VIP basket has outperformed the S & P 500 this year with a gain of 15%, compared to the S & P 500′s advance of more than 8%. This Goldman portfolio has a long history of beating the market with an outperformance of 50 basis points on average each quarter since 2001. UnitedHealth had 15 funds owning the stock as one of their top 10 holdings. New additions to the basket also included Skechers USA , Insmed , SharkNinja and Advanced Micro Devices . Goldman said hedge fund position turnover last quarter jumped to the highest level since 2021 due to the increased market volatility. UnitedHealth shares got a big boost, up 21% last week, after legendary investor Warren Buffett revealed a significant stake in the troubled insurer. The “Big Short” investor Michael Burry and Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper also disclosed sizable stakes in the company. The top of the VIP list was occupied by the so-called Magnificent Seven names, such as Amazon , Microsoft , Meta Platforms , Google’s Alphabet and Nvidia . Chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor and Broadcom also were high up on the list.
