Big reveal of institutional holdings! What are the 'smart money' investors buying?

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13F Big Reveal | Top Institutions' Q1 Holdings Unveiled: AI Main Theme Remains, 7 Giants Show Divergence

Recently, the 13F reports for the first quarter of 2026 from US institutional investors have been released one after another, once again conveying Wall Street's investment trends to the outside world.

According to SEC requirements, institutions managing stock assets exceeding $100 million must disclose their US stock holdings within 45 days after the end of each quarter. Among them, the portfolio adjustments of top investment firms such as Berkshire Hathaway, Baillie Gifford, Bridgewater, and ARK have attracted significant market attention.

Based on the latest Q1 data, the 'AI main theme' remains the core melody on Wall Street, but there is a clear divergence in specific operations among the giants: Berkshire Hathaway aggressively built positions in Google while completely selling out of Amazon; Bridgewater continued to increase its stake in Amazon, whereas Baillie Gifford opted to take profits in NVIDIA at higher levels. What signals are these capital behemoths sending with their specific moves?

Berkshire Hathaway: An unwavering moat in consumer and financial sectors, with a rare large-scale purchase of Google.

The total market value of Q1 holdings was approximately $263 billion, shrinking by about $11 billion from the previous quarter. In Greg Abel’s first full quarter of independent management, the number of holdings was significantly streamlined from 40 to 29, showcasing a more proactive rotation and cleansing style compared to the Buffett era.

Key positions:

Top 5 concentrated holdings are $Apple (AAPL.US)$ 、 $American Express (AXP.US)$ 、 $Coca-Cola (KO.US)$ 、 $Bank of America (BAC.US)$ 、 $Chevron (CVX.US)$, collectively still accounting for nearly 70% of the investment portfolio.

After three consecutive quarters of aggressive reductions, Berkshire officially halted the sale of Apple in Q1. $Apple (AAPL.US)$ Still firmly holding the top position with over 22% of the portfolio, thanks to its unparalleled ecosystem stickiness, extremely high free cash flow return rate, and powerful stock buyback capability.

Increase direction:

This season, there has been a significant increase in positions $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$, with the number of shares held surging over 200%, while also newly establishing positions in $Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$。Google's powerful search engine monopoly, abundant advertising cash flow, and its relatively reasonable valuation among tech stocks make it highly aligned with the management’s preference for 'high-quality, reasonably valued' companies.

Newly established positionsAfter the restructuring, $Delta Air Lines (DAL.US)$ compared to long-standing retailers $Macy's (M.US)$ 。Continuously increasing holdings $Lennar Corp (LEN.US)$ , betting on the resilience of the US real estate market; adding more positions in $New York Times (NYT.US)$ , which reflects management's continued investment in high-barrier, high-certainty defensive traditional media brands.

Direction of reduction:

Liquidated $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ (ending a multi-year holding period), $UnitedHealth (UNH.US)$ as well as the financial payments giant $Visa (V.US)$ and $MasterCard (MA.US)$ , liquidating targets with poor liquidity or mismatched valuations altogether.

For traditional energy giants $Chevron (CVX.US)$ , reducing holdings by approximately 35% to manage position risks during periods of high oil price volatility; simultaneously, made a drastic 95% cut to alcohol industry stocks in what can be called a 'portfolio-clearing slash.' $Constellation Brands (STZ.US)$

Baillie Gifford Investments: Heavy tech growth focus shows divergence in star stock operations

Centuries-old asset management giant Baillie Gifford saw its portfolio’s total market value shrink from about $120.3 billion in the previous quarter to $97.9 billion. It still maintains a highly diversified portfolio with 271 holdings.

Major positions:

The top five holdings are dominated by high-growth attributes, namely $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ 、 $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ , the Latin American e-commerce giant $MercadoLibre (MELI.US)$ , the streaming media giant $Spotify Technology (SPOT.US)$ , and the digital bank $Nu Holdings (NU.US)$ . These five assets collectively account for nearly 27% of its total portfolio.

Increase direction:

Baillie Gifford (柏基) Q1 allocated more funds to growth stocks in vertical fields, with the top five increased positions including: the Latin American financial group $Credicorp (BAP.US)$ 、EOG Resources $EOG Resources (EOG.US)$ , a travel platform directly benefiting from the rise of India's middle class $MakeMyTrip (MMYT.US)$ , and the monopolistic public safety equipment SaaS provider $Axon Enterprise (AXON.US)$ and Industrial IoT pioneer $Samsara (IOT.US)$ 。

Direction of reduction:

It is worth noting that, despite $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ still being its largest position, Baillie Gifford included it in their Q1 top 5 reduction list. Also being reduced were $Netflix (NFLX.US)$、 $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ 、 $The Trade Desk (TTD.US)$ and $Coupang (CPNG.US)$ . This indicates that institutions have a 'fight while retreating' approach to AI leaders with large gains, locking in profits as a hedge.

Bridgewater: Aggressively betting on AI infrastructure and the semiconductor supply chain

The world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater had a total portfolio value of $22.4 billion in Q1, shrinking by about $5 billion. However, its holdings are relatively diversified, with a high number of 993 positions.

Major positions:

As a classic macro hedge fund, Bridgewater’s defensive assets remain extremely solid. The top two holdings are still immovable broad market index instruments — $SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY.US)$ And, $iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV.US)$ . Tech giants $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ 、 $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$as well as$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ Following closely, as a stock with both stable cash flow and AI growth attributes forms the basic portfolio.

Increase direction:

The most core operation this quarter by Bridgewater is onAI computing power and network clusters,executing an extremely aggressive vertical integration-style addition. Almost all of the top five increased positions are monopolized by hardcore tech and semiconductor leaders:

In addition to continuing to add positions in $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ And, $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ , they significantly increased their holdings in the global chip foundry absolute leader $Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$ 。

Massive purchases of customized ASIC chips and high-speed network communication giants $Broadcom (AVGO.US)$ , and riding the HBM high-bandwidth memory supercycle with $Micron Technology (MU.US)$ 。

Bridgewater has thus sent out a strong macro signal — The hardware-driven boom on the AI infrastructure side is far from peaking.

Direction of reduction:

In its reduction operations, Bridgewater demonstrated sophisticated cycle-shifting logic:

This quarter, it slightly trimmed positions in certain $iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV.US)$ to free up liquidity and modestly reduced exposure to travel giants$Booking Holdings (BKNG.US)$ as a hedge against macro risks stemming from a slowdown in premium consumer spending following high inflation.

Most notably, Bridgewater significantly reduced holdings in semiconductor etching equipment makers$Lam Research (LRCX.US)$ locking in gains at elevated levels and decisively cutting positions in traditional cloud software giants $Salesforce (CRM.US)$ and $Adobe (ADBE.US)$ 。

ARK: Staying committed to disruptive innovation, rebalancing into AI healthcare and crypto ecosystems

Cathie Wood's ARK funds reported a total Q1 holding value of $12.9 billion, down $2.2 billion from the prior quarter, with 181 holdings.

Major positions:

ARK continues its extreme preference for long-term disruptive technologies. The top five major holdings are $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ 、 $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ , gene-editing pioneer $CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP.US)$ , e-commerce platform $Shopify (SHOP.US)$ , and AI big data analytics leader $Palantir (PLTR.US)$ 。

Despite facing headwinds such as a slowdown in electric vehicle sales growth in the first quarter, Tesla is still regarded by 'Wood' as the 'largest AI and autonomous driving target', firmly holding the top position.

Increase direction:

ARK actively captured AI and cryptocurrency niche opportunities in Q1, with the top five added positions including: computing power network giant $Broadcom (AVGO.US)$ , to capture the self-developed chip (ASIC) dividends from large-cap tech stocks. Heavily bought into an AI precision medicine dark horse $Tempus AI (TEM.US)$ . At the same time, increased holdings in $Robinhood (HOOD.US)$ , cryptocurrency exchanges$Bullish (BLSH.US)$ and metaverse platforms$Roblox (RBLX.US)$ , extending its reach to the forefront of Web3 and AI applications.

Direction of reduction:

Facing a period of valuation reassessment for growth stocks, ARK executed a ruthless structural overhaul this quarter.

Its top five reduced holdings were: semiconductor testing equipment maker $Teradyne (TER.US)$ , a streaming media platform besieged by hardware ecosystems of major tech giants, $Roku Inc (ROKU.US)$ and a short-term rental platform facing regulatory storms over short-lease laws in multiple countries $Airbnb (ABNB.US)$ , dragged down by a reduction in macro marketing budgets $The Trade Desk (TTD.US)$ and IT operations SaaS platforms experiencing a rise in customer churn$PagerDuty (PD.US)$ 。

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