As famed fund manager Michael Burry made headlines in the first quarter of this year, he trumpeted his support for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd..) and other bullish bets on stocks, other Wall Street top-stream hedge funds have also poured in。

Moore Capital Management and Third Point LLC were the largest buyers of the Chinese e-commerce giant's U.S.-listed shares in the first quarter of 2023, according to a hedge fund analysis compiled by the media using 13F documents.。

It is worth noting that, in the case of Wall Street predators have been rushing to raise funds, many Asian fund companies have instead made a large sell-off of Alibaba.。

Wall Street funds rush to raise Asian funds in reverse？

Last month, the Vision Fund, owned by leading Asian investment bank SoftBank Group, sold more than $7 billion of Alibaba's shares through prepaid forward contracts.。According to regulatory filings, the sale will reduce the Japanese conglomerate's stake in Alibaba to 3.8%, almost close to clearance。

SoftBank had already passed the approval of its Alibaba stake from 23 last year..7% to 14.6%, earning $34 billion。As one of Silicon Valley's largest investors, its Vision Fund has taken on billions of dollars in losses, so the sell-off of Alibaba is also forced, as SoftBank still has to fill its cash reserves to complete the IPO of its chip company Arm.。

In addition, including Segantii Capital Management Ltd under Simon Sadler.and Alpine Investment Management Ltd.), accounting for nearly half of the Alibaba ADRs sold by the top 10 hedge fund sellers in the quarter。Tairen Capital Limited, Prime Capital Management Co., Ltd.And Gang Rui Capital Management Limited is completely out of the position.。

Figures compiled in quarterly regulatory filings show that only one of Alibaba's top 10 buyers of U.S. stocks, based in Asia, is Hermes Li's Aspex Management (HK) Ltd..The company had $7.2 billion in management at the end of last year.。

Ctrip and Baidu are favored by Asian funds

Many investors trying to snoop on hedge fund trades have been paying close attention to the 13F documents, but it is certain that they all have some limitations。While 13F provides an end-of-season overview of most of the fund's bullish bets, it does not disclose how the quarter is trading and does not take into account most of the bearish bets。

Asia-based hedge funds typically invest most of their capital outside of U.S. exchanges, meaning the 13F filings they file represent only a fraction of their investments.。In jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, China, higher disclosure thresholds mean that information is harder to obtain。Many Chinese companies with US listings are now dual-listed in Hong Kong。It is unclear whether these ADR trades were a switch from ADRs to Hong Kong stocks or a partial hedge of Hong Kong stocks.。

The most popular stake that the aforementioned Asian seller who reduced Alibaba's holdings increased in the quarter was Ctrip Group。These Asian funds have more than tripled their current stake in Ctrip ADR.。The Chinese online travel agency's U.S. shares rose nearly 10 percent in the first quarter, extending a 26 percent gain in the last three months of 2022.。

During the quarter, CoreView and Segantii also built new positions in Baidu Inc, which unveiled China's response to ChatGPT and plans to spend $5 billion to buy back shares.。The company gave up some of its earlier gains amid news that the government would require a security review of generative AI services.。