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An NIO electric vehicle.
Drew Angerer / Getty Images
The South Korean sovereign wealth fund recently made big changes to some of its largest investments in US listed equities.
Korea Investment Corp. significantly increased its investments in electric vehicle companies
NIO
(ticker: NIO) and
You’re here
(TSLA), bought more
Intel
(INTC) and halve an investment in
General Electric (GE)
Stock. The fund disclosed the transactions, among other things, in a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Korea Investment, which managed $ 20.2 billion in assets at the end of 2019, did not respond to a request for comment on the investment changes.
The fund purchased an additional 295,687 US certificates of deposit from NIO at the end of 2020 along with 642,087 ADR from the Chinese EV maker.
ADR NIOs have climbed more than 12 times in value in 2020. So far in 2021, until closing on Fridays, they have gained 12.9%. In comparison, the
S&P 500 Index,
a measure of the overall market, grew 16.3% in 2020 and is up 4.0% year-to-date.
ADR NIOs have collapsed in recent days, but the move appears to be the result of volatility ahead of the company’s earnings report, which is scheduled for March 1. NIO vehicles could be sold soon in the United States. The deliveries were strong.
The Koreas fund bought an additional 152,400 Tesla shares to end the fourth quarter with 409,900 shares of the EV giant.
Tesla stock has climbed nearly nine times its value last year and has jumped 10.7% so far this year.
Tesla earlier this month revealed that it bought $ 1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin cryptocurrency. An analyst believes the company’s market value could be over $ 1 trillion. Tesla recently cut prices for cars in Japan.
Intel shares slipped 16.8% last year, but have jumped 26.5% so far this year, erasing the loss.
Intel shares surged in January when the chip giant announced a change of CEO. Shares slipped later that month when investors didn’t get the clarity they wanted on how the company will manufacture its next generation of chips. Outgoing CEO Bob Swan bought some stock in his final weeks in his role.
The fund bought 709,461 Intel shares at the end of 2020 with 3.8 million shares.
The Koreas fund sold 2.5 million GE shares to reduce its investment to 1.9 million shares.
GE stock slipped 3.2% in 2020, and since the start of the year it has gained 11.3%, more than offsetting the loss of previous years.
GEs spinning for the better drew compliments from longtime bear on the stock, JP Morgans Stephen Tusa. Free cash flow in the fourth quarter was strong, eclipsing poor financial performance. Jeff Immelt, former CEO of GE, assesses his legacy and the status of conglomerates recent years in a book to be published on Monday.
Inside Scoop is a regular feature of Barrons covering the stock transactions of corporate executives and board members, called insiders, as well as major shareholders, politicians and other prominent people. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock transactions to the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups..
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin
