BlackRock crazily bought Apple in Q3, continuing to favor the "Seven Sisters" of US stocks!
BlackRock's holdings report for the third quarter of 2024 shows that its total market value has grown to USD 4.76 trillion, primarily invested in large technology stocks. Apple has become its largest holding, with 1.093 billion shares valued at approximately USD 25.4813 billion, an increase of 4.13% from the previous quarter. Microsoft and NVIDIA rank second and third, respectively. BlackRock has also increased its holdings in other seven major U.S. stocks and established new positions in Smurfit WestRock, among others
According to the disclosure by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company, submitted its third-quarter holdings report (13F) for the period ending September 30, 2024.
Statistics show that BlackRock's total market value of holdings in the third quarter was $4.76 trillion, up from $4.42 trillion in the previous quarter, representing a quarter-on-quarter growth of 7%.
Among BlackRock's top ten holdings in the third quarter, large technology giants still dominate. In the top five holdings, Apple (AAPL.US) became the largest holding with 1.093 billion shares, valued at approximately $254.813 billion, accounting for 5.35% of the portfolio, an increase of 4.13% in the number of shares held compared to the previous quarter.
Microsoft (MSFT.US) was surpassed and ranked second, with 561 million shares, valued at approximately $241.606 billion, accounting for 5.07% of the portfolio, an increase of 1.35% in the number of shares held compared to the previous quarter.
NVIDIA (NVDA.US) ranked third, with 1.851 billion shares, valued at approximately $224.862 billion, accounting for 4.72% of the portfolio, an increase of 0.67% in the number of shares held compared to the previous quarter.
Amazon (AMZN.US) and META (META.US) ranked fourth and fifth, with market values of $124.329 billion and $92.787 billion, respectively, representing increases of 2.86% and 0.61% in the number of shares held compared to the previous quarter.
The top ten holdings also included Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US), Broadcom (AVGO.US), Alphabet-C (GOOG.US), Eli Lilly (LLY.US), and Tesla (TSLA.US).
In the third quarter, BlackRock established positions in Smurfit WestRock (SW.US), Six Flags Entertainment (FUN.US), among others, and completely exited positions in Conn's (CONNQ.US), among others.
During this quarter, BlackRock significantly bought 43.4 million shares of Apple, allowing it to surpass Microsoft and become the top holding. The institution also substantially increased its holdings in the seven major U.S. tech companies, adding 7.51 million shares of Microsoft, 12.36 million shares of NVIDIA, 18.56 million shares of Amazon, 0.98 million shares of Meta, 0.466 million shares of Tesla, 0.452 million shares of Alphabet-A, and 0.171 million shares of Alphabet-C. Additionally, the institution increased its holdings in Broadcom by 14.21 million shares and Berkshire-B (BRK.B.US) by 2.59 million shares.
In this quarter, BlackRock reduced its holdings in Eli Lilly by 1.52 million shares, Netflix (NFLX.US) by 93,000 shares, and AMD (AMD.US) by 860,000 shares.
From the changes in holding proportions, the top five buying targets were: Apple, Tesla, Walmart, Meta, and Berkshire-B (BRK.B.US) The top five sold stocks include: Eli Lilly, Lam Research (LRCX.US), Applied Materials (AMAT.US), Adobe (ADBE.US), Intuit (INTU.US).