Some of the biggest tech purchases made by the third-largest public pension fund in the U.S. were changed in big ways.
There were cuts in Palantir Technologies (PLTR 0.87%), Apple (AAPL -1.33%), and Nvidia (NVDA 1.99%) stock by the New York State Common Retirement Fund in the third quarter. The fund, which is made up of New York State and Local Retirement System members, retirees, and beneficiaries, also bought more Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -1.53%) shares. In a form it sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the pension fund talked about the stock trades and other things.
The pension’s sole director, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, did not want to say anything about the changes to the investments. It was in charge of $267.7 billion in assets as of June 30. Plans & Investments says the fund has the third most assets of any public pension plan in the United States.
It was added to the S&P 500 index (SPX 0.41%) in September, which gave the stock some support as funds that follow the index bought shares of the data-analytics company. By following a plan, Palantir’s chairman and co-founder Peter Thiel sold more than $1 billion worth of stock in September and October.
It sold 231,600 Palantir shares, leaving it with 1.1 million shares at the end of the third quarter. In the first nine months of the year, Palantir stock rose 116%, while the S&P 500 rose only 21%. The average has gone down 0.5% so far this quarter, while shares have gone up 13%.
It sold 1.5 million Apple shares in the third quarter, lowering its holdings to 19.6 million shares of the company that makes the iPhone. In the first nine months of the year, shares went up 21%. However, they are down 4.3% so far in the fourth quarter.
A trading plan that will end in about two years was just started by Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. Apple Intelligence, the company’s brand name for its AI technology, has been slow to come out. Since not all of the features are available yet, people may wait longer to buy new iPhones in order to use them.
Chipmaker Nvidia has been the AI stock to own, and investors’ excitement has sent its shares through the roof. In the first nine months of 2024, shares went up 145%. They are up 11% so far in the fourth quarter.
At the end of August, Nvidia said that the second quarter had been good. At the end of September, six million shares were sold through CEO Jensen Huang’s trade program. This took pressure off of Nvidia stock.
The fund sold 3.1 million Nvidia shares, leaving it with 30.5 million shares at the end of the third quarter.
In the third quarter, the New York State Common Retirement Fund bought an extra 102,505 AMD shares, bringing its total stake to 2.4 million shares.
In the first nine months of the year, AMD stock went up 11%. However, so far in the fourth quarter, shares are down about 13%.
In the past week, AMD gave a disappointing outlook that overshadowed an earnings report for the third quarter that was in line with predictions. The stock went down. Some experts say AMD isn’t quite at the same level of AI power as Nvidia yet.
