The central bank of Switzerland recently reduced some of its high-profile investments in U.S.-traded securities.
The
Swiss National Bank
slashed a position in movie-theater chain
AMC
Entertainment Holdings (ticker: AMC), and reduced investments in iPhone maker
Apple
(AAPL), chip firm
Nvidia
(NVDA), and electric-vehicle maker
Tesla
(TSLA) in the third quarter. The bank disclosed the stock trades, among others, in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The bank declined to comment. Swiss National Bank’s balance-sheet total shrank in 2022 for the first time in 15 years, to $988 billion from $1.2 trillion. The loss was “principally due to valuation losses on investments, with foreign currency sales also a contributing factor,” the bank said in its annual report.
The bank sold 828,750 AMC shares to end the third quarter with 301,691 shares. AMC stock plunged 80% in the first nine months of 2023, and so far in the fourth quarter it has slipped 14%. For comparison, the
S&P 500 index
rose 12% in the first nine months of this year, and is up 6.3% so far in the fourth quarter.
AMC stock has been beset by issues this year. The company reverse split its shares, one for 10, and converted preferred equity units into common shares in August. The moves were intended to allow the company to sell new stock to help shore up the balance sheet. Still, it represented a setback for a company that had been buoyed by the meme-stock craze. There are other challenges, as AMC CEO
Adam Aron
said in October that he had been the target of a blackmail plot.
Apple CEO
Tim Cook
kicked off 2023 by taking a 40% pay cut. Cook traveled to China in October to visit to a key supplier, and meet with senior government officials. Apple’s latest quarterly earnings and guidance showed that the Chinese market remains a concern.
Nonetheless, Apple stock surged 32% in the first nine months of 2023, and so far in the fourth quarter shares are up 11%. The Swiss bank sold 6.6 million Apple shares to end the third quarter with 50.6 million shares.
The Swiss National Bank sold 976,200 Nvidia shares to end the third quarter with 7.9 million shares. Nvidia stock tripled in value in the first nine months of 2023, and so far in the fourth quarter shares are up 10%.
Nvidia crushed earnings estimates when it reported third-quarter numbers in the past week. As with Apple, China remains a concern for Nvidia. Nonetheless, the soaring interest in artificial intelligence continues to lift Nvidia stock.
Tesla stock hasn’t had the rally that Nvidia stock has this year, having merely doubled in the first nine months of 2023. So far in the fourth quarter, the EV maker’s stock has slipped 6%.
The two companies are somewhat entwined, as Tesla CEO
Elon Musk
has noted Nvida chips are key to its EVs. “[W]e’ll actually take Nvidia hardware as fast as Nvidia will deliver it to us,” Musk said in an earnings conference call earlier this year. Meanwhile, Musk’s controversial tweets have observers questioning his leadership. As with the other tech names, China remains on investors’ radars for continued monitoring.
The Swiss National Bank sold 1.1 million Tesla shares to end the third quarter with 9.2 million shares.
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
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