Text size
The iPhone 13 presented at the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The central bank of Norway recently reduced its exposure to iPhones and increased its investments in the ecosystem of alternative fuel vehicles and graphics chips.
Norges Bank sold
Apple
(ticker: AAPL) stock, and bought shares of
Nvidia
(NVID),
Plug hole
(SHEET), and
NIO
(
NIO
) in the fourth quarter. The bank disclosed the stock transactions, among other things, in a revised form that he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.
Norges said he does not comment on individual investments. The bank had a total assets of $1.47 trillion from the end of 2021.
The bank sold 26.8 million shares of Apple to end the fourth quarter with 142.1 million shares of the maker of iPhones and Mac computers. Apple stock soared 33.8% last year, beating the 27% rise in the
S&P 500 Index. So far this year, stocks have slid 13%, but that’s less than the index’s 12% decline.
Apple’s product launch event last week unveiled products including a 5G version of the iPhone SE and Mac Studio, a computer aimed at design professionals. At the end of January, Apple announced strong earnings for the quarter ended in December. A watcher earlier this month noted that shares of Apple and other big tech companies may be poised to rise.
Nvidia is another top tech stock that is deep in the red so far in 2022. Shares of the graphics chip giant are down 25% year-to-date. Nvidia stock, however, experienced a boffo in 2021, exploding by 125%. Norges Bank more than tripled its holdings by buying an additional 15.4 million Nvidia shares to end 2021 with 21.3 million shares.
Nvidia dropped a planned bid to acquire chip designer Arm in early February. Later that month, Nvidia reported a strong fiscal fourth quarter, and CEO Jensen Huang said the company was “seeing exceptional demand”. Nvidia stock slipped despite the numbers and strong forecasts, but Wall Street remained bullish on stocks.
Stocks associated with electric and alternative fuel vehicles aren’t exactly rising so far in 2022. Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel cell technology company, has seen its shares fall 13% year-to-date , while US certificates of deposit for Chinese electric vehicles manufacturer NIO fell 49%. Plug Power and NIO stocks have not had a smoother road in 2021, posting losses of 17% and 35% respectively.
In the fourth quarter, Norges Bank purchased an additional 2.6 million Plug Power shares and an additional 3.2 million ADR NIOs to end 2021 with 7.4 million Plug Power shares and 13.7 million ADRs NIO.
Plug Power reported earlier this month that fourth quarter losses were bigger than expected, but forecasts were optimistic and we noted that the profile of hydrogen technology was on the rise. Meanwhile, NIO shares recently started trading in Hong Kong, where they ended in the red on their first day of listing. NIO’s sales fell in February from January, and other Chinese electric vehicle companies saw the same trend. Last week, an analyst pointed to two reasons for weak ADRs from NIO and other Chinese EV makers.
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron column that covers the stock trading of corporate executives and board members – the so-called insiders – as well as major shareholders, politicians and other high profile figures. Because of their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades to the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
