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NPS cashes in on last year's Wall Street rally with sell-off of Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft shares

Published: 12 Feb. 2025, 18:21

SHIN HA-NEE
[email protected]

A branch office of National Pension Service in northern Seoul on Aug. 29, 2024 [YONHAP]

Korea’s sovereign fund trimmed its holdings of U.S. large-cap stocks such as Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft after last year’s rally to bag profits estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

According to the National Pension Service’s (NPS) Form 13F filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 5, the state-run pension fund offloaded 1.2 million shares of Nvidia from its investment portfolio based on its previous filing on Oct. 30 last year.

This sale is estimated to translate to approximately $160.7 million based on the closing price of Nvidia by the end of last year.

The NPS held 46 million shares of the chip giant worth $6.18 billion.

The public fund also sold 788,650 shares of Apple, estimated to be worth $197.5 million, and 109,196 shares of Microsoft worth $46 million.

Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft accounted for 6.4 percent, 5.8 percent and 5.2 percent of the NPS’s U.S. stock portfolio, respectively, as the three largest holdings as of the end of the fourth quarter.

Notably, the NPS significantly expanded its holdings of Palantir Technologies, acquiring an additional 1.94 million shares in the data software company after October, securing a total of 4.94 million shares worth $111.6 million. The fund also added 320,400 shares of Broadcom to secure a total of 8.59 million shares worth $2 billion.

The NPS posted a 12.57 percent return on investment from January to November last year, according to its report on Jan. 24.

Domestic stocks amounted to 140.65 trillion won ($96.75 billion) of its reserves by the end of November, accounting for 11.86 percent of the total, while overseas stocks took up 35.49 percent at 420.49 trillion won.

The return on domestic stocks was dismal at negative 4.94 percent due to the Korean stock market’s underperformance last year, while overseas stock investment posted a robust return of 29.72 percent on Wall Street’s record rally last year.

The NPS aims to allot 14.9 percent of its portfolio to domestic stocks this year, down 0.5 percentage points from last year, and 35.9 percent to overseas stock.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [[email protected]]