A Look At Nvidia's Largest Shareholders And What Their Presence Means

The news just keeps getting better for NVIDIA Corporation NVDA investors. After a huge Q1 earnings beat sent shares soaring, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the Japanese telecom giant SoftBank Corp has taken a $4 billion stake in Nvidia.

Incredible Run

Nvidia investors nervous about the stock’s lofty valuation after a more than 640 percent three-year gain may take comfort in the fact that they're in good company with SoftBank. The SoftBank investment suggests the Japanese firm is placing a massive bet that Nvidia has more upside ahead in years to come.

While $4 billion may seem like a huge stake to the average investor, SoftBank isn't even among the top three largest institutional Nvidia investors, according to WhaleWisdom. Vanguard Group Inc reportedly holds a $4.03 billion stake in Nvidia, while FMR LLC holds a $6.7 billion stake.

BlackRock, Inc. BLK also recently added 34.6 million shares to its massive $3.8 billion Nvidia investment.

When these types of high-profile institutional investors are involved with a stock, investors know that the bullish long-term case for the stock certainly holds some water.

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Here’s a full list of Nvidia’s top 10 institutional investors prior to SoftBank, according to WhaleWisdom:

• 1. FMR (61.6 million shares)
• 2. Davidson Kempner Capital Management (39.6 million shares)
• 3. Vanguard Group (37.5 million shares)
• 4. BlackRock (35.7 million shares)
• 5. Calamos Advisors (25.9 million shares)
• 6. Huang Jen Hsun (25.0 million shares)
• 7. State Street Corp STT (22.7 million shares)
• 8. Primecap Management Company (22.0 million shares)
• 9. Weiss Asset Management (21.9 million shares)
• 10. Wells Fargo & Co WFC (19.0 million shares)

Does It Mean Anything?

SoftBank has been aggressively investing in U.S. companies since it pledged to President Trump that it plans to commit $50 billion in U.S. startups back in December. In March, SoftBank took a $300 million stake in U.S. office space and desk rental startup WeWork.

Clearly, investors such as BlackRock, Vanguard, FMR, State Street and Wells Fargo hold a wide range of stocks, and Nvidia just happens to be one of them. However, some of the other Nvidia investors have particular investment goals that they seem to believe Nvidia meets.

Davidson Kempner also has a well-diversified investment portfolio. Nvidia is its largest holding, with Humana Inc HUM, IAC/InterActiveCorp IAC and Advance Auto Parts, Inc. AAP rounding out its top four holdings.

Calamos Advisors specializes in large-cap U.S. tech stocks. Top holdings included Apple Inc. AAPL, Alphabet Inc GOOGL and Microsoft Corporation MSFT.

Jensen Huang is the co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, so his presence among the company’s top investors is no surprise.

Surprisingly, Primecap Management’s top three holdings are all pharmaceutical companies: Eli Lilly and Co LLY, Biogen Inc (BIIB) and Amgen, Inc. AMGN.

Weiss Asset Management also has a diversified portfolio of investments, although the firm certainly seems to have an affinity for tech stocks. Nvidia, rival Intel Corporation INTC and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. BRCD are among the firm’s top holdings.

Be Careful

But while there is clearly plenty of interest in Nvidia from these deep-pocket investors, a large segment of institutional investors remain skeptical of Nvidia’s run. A Goldman Sachs study of 821 hedge funds found that the funds, which hold a combined $1.9 trillion in assets, hold a collective $3 billion short position in Nvidia. That massive bearish bet represents the fourth-largest short position these firms hold in any stock.