Nike Is In, Tech Stocks Are Out. What These Big Investors Are Buying and Selling.

Hedge funds and other big investment fund managers shifted out of the Magnificent Seven tech stocks in the second quarter and took on new stakes in a variety of stocks in the healthcare and consumer sectors.

For example, activist investor Nelson Peltz didn’t exit his stake in Walt Disney entirely, but it was substantially lower compared with the first quarter after he lost his proxy battle at the entertainment company.

Instead, Peltz’s Trian Fund Management took on new stakes in Solventum , the healthcare company spun off from 3M in April, and U-Haul, the storage and moving company, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management reported a new 6 million-share stake in Southwest Airlines as of June 30. The fund this week started a proxy battle at the carrier, with plans to nominate a slate of directors to largely replace the board.

And Pershing Square Capital’s Bill Ackman, who recently withdrew a planned initial public offering of a $2 billion closed-end fund, reported new stakes in apparel maker Nike and investment management firm Brookfield Corp.

The regulatory filings reflect investment manager holdings as of the end of June, and portfolios may have shifted since then.

Trian Fund Management

Peltz’s Trian Fund Management reported 2.65 million shares of Disney as of June 30, down from 32 million in March. It reported a new 5.36 million share stake in Solventum and a nearly 1.3 million-share stake in U-Haul in two different share classes.

Trian reported no stake in food services company Sysco , compared with 1.2 million shares in March.

Elliott Investment Management

Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management snapped up nearly 8 million shares of the dating platform Match, doubled its stake in craft marketplace Etsy to 4.5 million shares, and bought about 500,000 more shares of communications firm Liberty Broadband to bring its total to just under 2.2 million.

Soros Capital

Soros Capital, the family office for billionaire George Soros, made a cryptocurrency play in the second quarter, taking on new stakes in Bitcoin mining-related companies.

Soros reported a new 2.3 million-share position in Bitcoin mining firm Terawulf and a new 1.5 million-share stake in Core Scientific, another Bitcoin miner. It took a new 1.3 million share stake in Iris Energy , a Bitcoin miner that operates data centers using renewable energy.

Soros took a smaller new 32,000 share stake in Portillo’s, a fast casual restaurant chain that specializes in Chicago-style hot dogs and the Italian beef sandwiches popularized in the Hulu series The Bear.

On the flip side, Soros cut or eliminated stakes in most of the Magnificent Seven stocks. It reported no holdings of Nvidia , Advanced Micro Devices , and Microsoft and smaller holdings in Amazon , Meta Platforms , and Netflix compared with the first quarter. It also reported no holdings of Ozempic and Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk as of June 30, compared with a 77,000-share stake in March.

Pershing Group

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital snapped up a new 7 million-share stake in Brookfield Corp.and 3 million shares of Nike. Pershing reported smaller holdings of Chipotle Mexican Grill , Alphabet , and Hilton Worldwide compared with its first quarter filing. It reported $10.4 billion of assets.

Baupost

Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group reduced its holdings of Alphabet by more than 60%, leaving it with just under 3 million shares. It also shed some 2 million shares of fintech firm Fidelity National Information Services and more than 3 million shares of Liberty Media ’s SiriusXM Group.

Baupost’s biggest new stake reported among its $3.6 billion in holdings was 420,000 shares of healthcare company Humana . It also picked up 1 million shares of Capri Holdings , the fashion group that owns Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors, and 1.8 million shares of healthcare company Solventum.

Starboard

Activist investment firm Starboard Value, which is run by Jeff Smith and reported $4.3 billion in assets, nearly halved its shares of healthcare company Humana to 507,000 from 906,000 in the prior quarter.

It also slashed its holdings in GoDaddy by nearly 2 million to 4.6 million. Its biggest purchase was 2.7 million shares of clinical research firm Fortrea to a total of 8 million shares.

Third Point

Dan Loeb’s Third Point disclosed several new stakes in the second quarter, including 1.95 million shares of Apple and 2.8 million shares in communications firm Amphenol . Third Point maintained its 5.1 million-share stake in Amazon.

Greenlight Capital

With $2 billion under management, David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital reported a new stake in Peloton of 6.8 million shares. It also upped its shares of pharmaceutical firm Viatris by 2.9 million shares to 7.4 million and doubled down its stake in HP Inc to 3.37 million shares.

It also reported new investments in fashion firm Capri Holdings and media conglomerate IAC of 700,000 and 300,000 shares, respectively.

It reported no position in clean energy firm Net Power, compared with 2 million shares in March. It also reported no holdings in Johnson & Johnson spinoff Kenvue , which sells Aveeno, Band-Air, Tylenol, and other consumer health brands. It held 710,000 Kenvue shares in March.

SYDNEY—Australian consumer confidence fell in September amid concerns about job security as economic growth slows to a crawl.

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index slipped 0.5% to 84.6 in September from 85.0 in August.

While cost-of-living pressures are becoming a little less intense and fears of further interest rate rises have eased, consumers are becoming more concerned about where the economy may be headed and what this could mean for jobs, said Westpac’s Head of Australian Macro-Forecasting, Matthew Hassan.

Consumers remain concerned about rising inflation, which is stoking concerns that interest rates may rise further, Hassan added.

The report comes a week after data showed the economy barely registered a pulse in the second quarter as consumer spending dropped sharply.

On-year GDP growth in the second quarter was the weakest since the early 1990s, excluding the pandemic years.

At the same time, the Reserve Bank of Australia continued to signal that interest rate cuts are unlikely in the near term, while adding that under certain circumstances a further hike in interest rates may be needed.

The RBA remains concerned about price growth, with core inflation remaining stubbornly elevated at nearly 4.0% on year in the second quarter.

Still, while consumers are downbeat, economists expect spending to regather momentum over coming quarters as income tax cuts delivered in July boost household budgets.