- A low-profile asset manager has been a major winner from the Big Tech stock rally this year.
- Jennison Associates' stakes in Tesla, Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon have soared in value.
A secretive asset manager has emerged as a massive winner from the breathless rally in Big Tech stocks this year.
Jennison Associates held a combined $36 billion of Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon shares at the end of June, Securities and Exchange Commission filings showed. Its stakes in those five companies were worth just under $21 billion in total at the end of December, meaning it's seen a $15 billion change in six months.
The growth-equity manager, which keeps a low profile and rarely engages with the media, raised its Tesla stake by only about 1% in the first half of this year. Yet its position more than doubled in value to $5 billion as the stock price of Elon Musk's electric-vehicle maker surged.
Jennison pared its Nvidia stake by about 9% in the first half, but the chipmaker's soaring stock meant its position still ballooned in value from below $3.5 billion to almost $9 billion. The investment firm also trimmed its Apple and Amazon holdings by 8% and 3%, respectively, yet both bets rose in value by about $2 billion as shares of the iPhone maker and e-commerce giant soared, Insider's analysis of the SEC filings found.
Similarly, Jennison's Microsoft stake jumped in value by over $3 billion as the asset manager boosted its holding by 12% and benefited from the software giant's blistering rally in the first half.
The upshot of those gains? Five stocks, out of roughly 800 listed positions, accounted for nearly 30% of Jennison's $122 billion equity portfolio at the end of June, compared with 21% six months earlier.
Jennison didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Technology stocks have led the broader US stock market this year, fueled by investor excitement about artificial intelligence and its potential to supercharge productivity and boost corporate profits. Inflation has cooled sharply in recent months, fanning hopes that the Federal Reserve will stop hiking interest rates and start cutting them instead and the US economy will escape a recession.
Investors bet big on Microsoft following its landmark investment in OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, early this year. They've also piled into Nvidia as they expect the AI boom to fuel enormous demand for microchips and bought into Tesla partly because Musk is spearheading AI-powered tech such as self-driving cars and humanoid robots. Apple and Amazon executives have also underscored their companies' AI investments and hailed the nascent tech as a key growth driver for their businesses in the years ahead.
While some investors have warmed to Big Tech only recently, Jennison first invested in Tesla in 2011, a year after the automaker went public. It has also owned Nvidia shares on and off since at least the fourth quarter of 2000.
It's worth noting that quarterly portfolio updates provide only a snapshot of a fund's holdings on a particular day. They also exclude nonstock assets, private and overseas investments, and shares sold short. As a result, they don't always paint a full and accurate picture of a firm's investments.