Jim Simons' Renaissance slashed its stakes in Amazon and Starbucks, and pulled $1.2 billion out of Tesla last quarter

• Renaissance Technologies cut its Tesla, Amazon, and Starbucks holdings in the first quarter.
• The quantitative hedge fund, founded by Cold War codebreaker Jim Simons, sold more than 80% of its Tesla and Starbucks stock and 43% of its Amazon shares, a financial filing revealed.
• RenTech also slashed its stakes in Norwegian Cruise Line, United Airlines, and General Electric, but loaded up on Costco, Coca-Cola, and Baidu stock.
• Overall, the fund's stock portfolio tumbled in value by 22% to about $101 billion.
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Renaissance Technologies, one of the world's biggest and best-performing hedge funds, slashed its stakes in Tesla, Amazon, and Starbucks in the first quarter.

RenTech, founded by Cold War codebreaker and MIT math professor Jim Simons, suffered a 22% plunge in the value of its stock portfolio to about $101 billion, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this week.

The decline was largely due to the coronavirus pandemic hammering many of the quantitative fund's more than 3,400 holdings, but also reflected some major stock sales.

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For example, RenTech sold just over 80% of its Tesla shares, slashing the value of its stake in Elon Musk's electric-car maker from $1.65 billion to about $400 million.

As a result, Tesla fell from its second-biggest holding by market value at the end of December, to only its 42nd biggest on March 31.

RenTech made big cuts to several of its 100 largest holdings. For instance, it sliced its positions in Starbucks by 82%, Norwegian Cruise Line by 73%, United Airlines by 66%, and General Electric by 44%. All four have been hit hard by declines in travel and tourism and business closures due to the pandemic.

The fund also reduced its stakes in Pfizer by 80%, Amazon by 43%, and eBay by 17%, despite the pharmaceuticals titan and the e-commerce giants' relative resilience to the current health crisis.

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RenTech pulled the trigger on several large purchases too. For example, it more than quadrupled its stake in Costco to about 1.28 million shares, valued at $364 million at the end of March.

It also boosted its Coca-Cola holdings by more than five-fold to 5.7 million shares, worth $253 million. Moreover, it almost tripled its position in Chinese internet giant Baidu to 5.7 million shares, worth about $576 million.

Other significant moves included boosting its positions in at least five pharmaceuticals companies that are likely to benefit from the ongoing healthcare crisis.

RenTech also added to its stakes in Walmart, Target, and Kroger, and took a $262 million stake in Procter & Gamble, signaling its confidence that demand for groceries and other essentials will remain strong.

Moreover, it snapped up nearly 2.8 million shares in Zoom Video Communications, giving it a $406 million stake in the video-conferencing firm.

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