Apple, Amazon, and Facebook shares surge to make Nasdaq the most crowded trade

Technology stocks, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), has made the Nasdaq index the most crowded trade on the planet, accrdoing to he Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Merrill Lynch’s survey of fund managers showed that the “long Nasdaq” trade, mostly populated with tech stocks, has taken over from the US dollar trade as the most crowded. The dollar held that spot for five months but fell to a six-month low today amid news that President Donald Trump shared intelligence with Russia’s foreign minister.

The Nasdaq is up 14.2% in the year-to-date, compared to the Dow’s 6.2% increase and the S&P 500′s 7.3% gain.

Shares of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Netflix are all up about 30% this year, supported by the expectation that Trump’s tax reform will also companies to repatriate foreign cash to the US at a lower rate. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is 21% higher.

Apple, which holds more than US$200bn offshore and plans to bring home much of the pile this year, became the first company to exceed a market capitalisation of US$800bn last Monday.

The milestone was reached after Drexel Hamilton raised its target price to US$202 a share from US$185, giving the company an estimated US$1trn valuation.

Goldman Sachs also raised its target price to US$170 from US$164bn and reiterated a ‘buy’ rating on the stock on Friday. The bank expects a September release for the next iPhone and believes the more pricier versions of the device, including a 128 gigabyte model for at US$999 and a 256 gigabyte model for US$1,099, could boost average selling prices and gross margins.

Berkshire Hathaway raises holding in Apple…

Today Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) received yet another vote of confidence after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. confirmed it more than doubled its holding in the iPhone maker.

Berkshire raised its stake in Apple to 129 million shares, worth US$18.6bn, at 31 March, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. This compares to the US$7.1bn worth of shares it held at 31 December.

Buffett has previously said he is risk-adverse with investing in technology companies, but remains confident in Apple’s stock and believes the iPhone is a good product.

“Apple strikes me as having quite a sticky product, and an enormously useful product to people that use it,” Buffett told CNBC in a February interview.

He also recently admitted to shareholders that he made a mistake on missing out on investing in Alphabet and Amazon years ago when their stock price was a fraction of what it is today.

Buffet, whose Berkshire Hathaway holds the second-biggest equity holding in Apple, said he realised early on the Google was turning significant profits from advertising but didn’t think it could sustain long-term success.

On Amazon, he said he was “too dumb to realise” its growth potential as he underestimated  its potential dominance and the ability of  chief executive Jeff Bezos.

Story by ProactiveInvestors