Here's how Wall Street pros traded 13 Club stocks last quarter, including Salesforce and Disney

Big-name investors and hedge funds made moves in Club holdings Disney (DIS), Nvidia (NVDA) and TJX Companies (TJX) in the fourth quarter. This latest batch of regulatory disclosures also provides more clarity on the unusual levels of activist pressure facing Salesforce (CRM), also one of our long-term Club positions. At this point, it’s established that five activist-focused hedge funds are targeting Salesforce. But the securities filings — known as 13Fs and submitted to regulators on a quarterly basis — offer fresh insight into the timing and size of the positions. Those specific details hadn’t been known because the firm’s holdings initially became public through media reports. What’s new? Disclosures at three activist firms confirmed they were among Salesforce’s shareholder ranks by the end of 2022, more than known at the time. In mid-October, Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value was the first activist firm to go public with its stake in Salesforce — a development the Club cheered at the time . It wasn’t until late January that the extent of the activist activity at Salesforce started to become clear. That’s when media outlets, including CNBC, confirmed Paul Singer’s Elliott Management amassed a multibillion-dollar position in the company. However, by Dec. 31, according to the filings, not only Starboard but Jeffrey Ubben’s Inclusive Capital and ValueAct Capital, run by CEO Mason Morfit, had stakes in Salesforce. Starboard’s position stood at 3.03 million shares — valued at $401.22 million — at the end of the fourth quarter, according to the firm’s 13F. Inclusive’s 1.63 million shares were worth $216.77 million and ValueAct’s 560,221 shares carried a market value of $74.28 million. After building its stake in Salesforce in the fourth quarter, ValueAct has seen Morfit added to Salesforce’s board of directors, a boardroom shake-up earlier this month that may not be the last. Elliott Management and Third Point — whose position was the latest to surface in reports last week — did not disclose any Salesforce holdings in their fourth-quarter filings. So, the exact number of shares they own has yet to be made public in government filings. One limitation of 13Fs is they only show the size and value of a position at the end of a reporting period; they’re merely a snapshot in time. From the filing alone, there’s no way to glean a firm’s hypothetical returns for its investment because its cost basis is unknown. It could’ve made multiple trades, at different stock prices, across the quarter — and of course, in the new year. But in general, the activist firms that bought into Salesforce in 2022 have seen their holdings grow in value this year as the enterprise software maker’s stock has climbed more than 26% — a rebound that coincides with mounting activist interest. CRM YTD mountain Salesforce (CRM) YTD performance In addition to Salesforce, a number of other Club holdings appeared in hedge funds’ quarterly disclosures. While these aren’t necessarily the kind of activist situations afoot at Salesforce, decisions made by influential investors still are worth keeping tabs on. For example, in the fourth quarter, David Tepper took a new stake in Disney, according to his firm Appaloosa Management’s filing. The billionaire hedge fund legend and owner of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers bought 300,000 shares, valued at $26.1 million as of Dec. 31. He also left untouched his positions in Club holdings Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT), while trimming his Meta Platforms (META) stake by roughly one-third to 575,000 shares. He grew his Amazon (AMZN) holdings by 3.5% to 1.5 million shares. Tepper reported owning Salesforce shares for the third consecutive quarter. He boosted his position in Q4 to 300,000 shares, up from 190,000 in the prior reporting period. As of Dec. 31, Tepper’s stake in Salesforce was worth $39.8 million. We didn’t count Tepper among the activists in CRM because that’s not generally his style. He is well-known, however, as a trader, so it’s wise to not read too much into his past views because they could have changed by the time the 13Fs are public. Elsewhere, Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners exited his small position in Procter & Gamble (PG) in the fourth quarter. At the time of its third-quarter disclosure, Trian owned 5,589 shares, worth about $700,000. Peltz has an extensive history with P & G, having served on the consumer products giant’s board for about three years following a high-profile proxy fight. However, it’s not a total surprise to see him completely exit P & G now that he’s on the board of another consumer goods company, London-listed Unilever (UL). While Trian was selling out of P & G in the fourth quarter, Peltz was building a stake in Disney — 9.03 million shares, worth $784,509 as of Dec. 31— with a goal of getting on the board. But Peltz’s proxy fight to try to make that happen proved to be short-lived. He called it off last week , saying he was satisfied by Bob Iger’s newly announced sweeping restructuring plan — a bold move we support from Iger who’s only been back as CEO for a few months now. Hedge fund pioneer Stanley Druckenmiller built positions in two of the Club’s longtime semiconductor holdings, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), in the fourth quarter. Both stocks had been beaten down heavily by the time Q4 rolled around. Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office reported owning 582,915 shares of Nvidia and 308,235 shares of AMD at the end of the fourth quarter, valued at $85.19 million and $19.96 million, respectively. Druckenmiller also substantially boosted his Eli Lilly (LLY) position, growing it by more than 50% to 737,725 shares as of Dec. 31; it was valued at nearly $270 million at year-end. On the other hand, Druckenmiller sold completely out of Coterra Energy (CTRA), after reporting in his third-quarter 13F that he owned 1.11 million shares, worth about $29.1 million at the time. (The Club sold some Coterra shares Friday as well as some Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD). We also downgraded the stocks to a 2 rating .) Some of the activists swarming at Salesforce have positions in other Club holdings and made changes to them during the fourth quarter. Most notably, that includes Loeb’s Third Point, which significantly upped its bet on TJX Companies, behind off-price retail chains T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods. The firm’s holdings stood at 2.65 million shares — valued at $210.9 million — as of Dec. 31, up 51.4% from its share count at the end of Q3. Loeb’s fund initiated its position in the off-price retailer in the third quarter. On the other hand, Third Point scaled back its Disney position in the fourth quarter, cutting it by nearly a third to 950,000 shares. Those sales came after Third Point and Disney in the third quarter reached an agreement on multiple issues raised by the hedge fund. Third Point’s stake in life sciences and medical diagnostics company Danaher (DHR) didn’t change in the fourth quarter compared with the third quarter, remaining at 2.7 million shares. Bottom line While individual investors shouldn’t base their own decisions on the contents of a hedge fund’s quarterly disclosures, there is educational value in monitoring what’s in them. Keep in mind the limitations: 13Fs are a backward-looking freeze frame, so it’s possible the fund’s holdings have changed by the time the disclosure is published. Short positions also are not listed in 13Fs, so they aren’t a complete picture of how a fund is postured. However, keeping an eye on who else is invested in your stocks — particularly when it’s someone like Tepper, whose comments can move markets, and well-respected activist firms — is one piece of the “buy and homework” process . (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long DIS, NVDA, TJX, CRM, GOOGL, MSFT, META, AMZN, PG, LLY, AMD, CTRA, DHR. See here for a full list of the stocks in the Culb portfolio) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. 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