Dan Loeb Made A Big Bet On The Auto Loan Business

Loeb's Third Point just released its latest 13F filing with the SEC, which revealed a new 45.6 million share stake in Ally Financial, the auto loan financier. According to the filing, this stake is worth $1.09 billion.

Other new stakes that Loeb took during the second quarter include cloud company Rackspace Hosting, which Loeb took a more than 7 million share stake in worth $244 million.

The filing also showed that Loeb added nearly 15 million shares, or about $781 million, to his stake in Dow Chemical, which is now up to 22 million shares worth more than $1.1 billion in all.

Loeb also sold all 4.5 million shares of his more than $150 million stake in Cabot Oil & Gas.

A 13F requires hedge funds to disclose their long positions within 45-days after a quarter ends, and so Thursday's filing represents Loeb's holdings as of June 30.

The New York Fed on Thursday released its latest household debt and credit report, which showed that auto loan debt grew $30 billion in the second quarter, the highest volume of loan originations since the third quarter of 2006.

The latest data on auto sales showed that sales slowed in July to an annualized pace of 16.5 million vehicles, down from a pace of 16.8 million in June.

In afternoon trade on Thursday, Ally shares were up nearly 3%.