Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., August 8, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Investors are watching quarterly filings on Wednesday to get a glimpse at how some of the world’s biggest money managers were positioned at the end of the second quarter, a period marked by a series of record highs in the S&P 500 that preceded a more recent bout of turmoil in U.S. stocks.
Filed at the end of each quarter, the 13-F filings are one of the few ways to get a snapshot of how often-secretive market participants such as hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds are positioned, though they are backward looking and don’t reveal current holdings.
The S&P 500 rose nearly 4% from the beginning of April until the end of June, notching nine consecutive record highs in a rally fueled by excitement over artificial intelligence and expectations that the Federal Reserve will be able to lower U.S. inflation without hurting growth.
Markets turned frothy at the start of the third quarter. Worries over rich valuations hit many of the market's tech heavyweights, including chipmaker Nvidia, the poster-child of the AI rally. Concerns over the U.S. economy and a rate hike from the Bank of Japan roiled markets further, spurring a sharp early-August plunge in the S&P 500. The index has made up much of those losses in recent days.
Here is a snapshot of how some of the biggest funds were positioned at the end of June:
ROKOS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
The macro hedge fund run by Chris Rokos dumped a $164.9 million position in Apple - totaling 961,403 shares - that it held at the end of the first quarter, while also reducing its stake in Alphabet by almost 90%. But Rokos increased its stakes in other so-called Magnificent Seven stocks: Meta Platforms, Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon.
SOROS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
The family office of Robert Soros completely dissolved its stake 63,640 share stake in Microsoft, worth $26.6 million at the end of March, and sold all 103,000 shares they owned in Advanced Micro Devices in the second quarter, while also reducing exposure to other big tech companies, such as Amazon, Uber Technologies, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Meta Platforms. Soros dissolved a sizable put position, which is typically seen as bearish, in the exchange-traded fund iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond.
SAUDI PUBLIC INVESTMENT FUND
The Saudi Public Investment Fund closed out its position in weight loss biotech Allurion Technologies Inc, selling nearly 1.2 million shares. It tripled its position in the Brazilian digital banking company Nu Holdings Ltd, adding approximately 2.6 million shares, and added to existing call positions – which are typically seen as bullish - in large technology stocks including PayPal, Microsoft, and Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc.
The fund held roughly $20.7 billion in US stocks in the second quarter. In the first quarter, it had slashed its holdings nearly in half, to $18 billion.
JANA PARTNERS
Activist investor Jana Partners built a new stake in U.S. enterprise software company BlackLine Systems during the second quarter. Jana owned 1.15 million shares on June 30, equivalent to a near 2% stake.
(Reporting by Carolina Mandl and David Randall in New York; Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Nick Zieminski)
