fbpx

Swiss National Bank Now Owns Record $94 Billion In U.S. Stocks After Q3 Buying Spree

Swiss National Bank Now Owns Record $94 Billion In U.S. Stocks After Q3 Buying Spree

New Stock Exchange Swiss National Bank
The Swiss National Bank owns a record $94.1 billion worth of U.S. stocks after it went on a buying spree in the third quarter of 2019. John Wilson with the New York Stock Exchange monitors stock activity, Sept. 16, 2019. Image: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

The Swiss National Bank owns U.S. stocks worth $94.1 billion – the most the bank has ever owned – after a buying spree in the third quarter of 2019, according to data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

This is in contrast to a year ago when the bank paused its U.S. stock accumulation and cut back to $78 billion worth of the stocks, SWFI reported.

The Swiss central bank held several U.S. stocks including Facebook Inc., Apple Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Netflix. Apple and Microsoft were its largest positions.

The Swiss central bank has made currency interventions over the past decade to stem the franc’s rise, according to Bloomberg.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 68: Jamarlin Martin

Jamarlin talks about the recent backlash against LeBron James for not speaking up for Joshua Wong and the violent Hong Kong protestors.

Swiss National Bank buying spree

The SEC filing, which is the only listing available of the Swiss National Bank’s individual holdings, showed that it had added 1.28 million shares of Alibaba, 970,000 of Fidelity National Information Services, 628,000 of Jingdong, 537,000 of Juniper Networks, 472,000 of Global Payments Incorporated, and 257,000 of Microsoft during the third quarter of 2019.

During that same period, the Swiss National Bank sold 1.85 million shares of First Data Corporation, 301,000 shares of Oracle, 229,000 shares of Cisco Systems, and 188,000 shares of Apple.

This realignment pushed the value of the Swiss National Bank’s U.S. stock portfolio 1.5 percent higher in the third quarter to an all-time high.