Strange Stock Trends in the Fidelity Contrafund (WFC, JPM, IRE, KO, PEP, BRK-A, BIIB, AMGN, AAPL, GOOG, INTC, MSFT, XOM, CVX)

February 28, 2013 by Jon C. Ogg

The Fidelity Contrafund has released its 2012 annual report for its shareholders. While the date is December 31, 2012, and the asset size is listed as more than $84 billion as of that date, the January 31 asset size is shown to be $61 billion at Fidelity’s own site. There are some very interesting takeaways here. We could not help but to notice some very strange observations about the fund’s key stock holdings this year.

Before we get to the holdings, here are some basic statistics on the Contrafund. Its performance was 16.26% in 2012. The annualized gain over the five-year period was 1.97%, versus 9.68% annualized gains over the past ten-year period. Its annual expense ratio is 0.76%. The Fidelity Contrafund is not an index-tracker, and its fund management team makes actual investment decisions where the FMR management team believes the value is not fully recognized by the public in growth stocks or value stocks.

We are sticking to the year-end of 2012 to keep things consistent with the filing. As the market gained in January, so did the Contrafund.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) was the top bank stock in the financial holdings, worth a whopping $2.127 billion. While J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is roughly the same size by market cap yet massively larger by total assets, the Contrafund only owns $200.5 million worth of its common stock. In contrast, the Contrafund owned more of Bank of Ireland (NYSE: IRE) over J.P. Morgan at more than $205 million.

The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) is a stake worth over $2.1 billion, but the Contrafund owned no position in Pepsico Inc. (NYSE: PEP).

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) was the third largest position by value that we saw, at $2.995 billion.

The Contrafund had more dollars in biotech than it did in traditional Big Pharma stocks, with a 4.6% weighting versus a 4.0% weighting. Its stake in Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) was almost $1.3 billion, and Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) was just over $1 billion. Those two positions were the Contrafund’s largest health care positions.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was the largest stock holding, worth $6.149 billion at the time, but was actually down to 7.3% rather than 9.0% six months earlier as a percentage of the total Contrafund asset weighting.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) was the second largest position, worth $4.463 billion. Its stake was 5.3% of the fund’s total assets, versus only 4.3% six months earlier.

Neither Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) nor Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) were included at all in the $23.5 billion in technology and IT.

Energy stocks barely accounted for a 5% weighting, at $4.71 billion, and neither DJIA component Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) nor Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) were included.

The Contrafund is up 4.3% year-to-date. The Contrafund portfolio manager is William Danoff, and he said the performance of the fund also was helped by largely avoiding the weak utilities sector and large energy stocks. Here is where you can find the full annual report filing.

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