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Guess Who Owns $1.1 Billion In Apple Stock
The Swiss National Bank had a rough quarter in Q1 as the decision to abandon the increasingly unsustainable EURCHF floor (an event which marked an implicit admission that central banks are not all-powerful after all) blew a $32 billion hole in the central bank’s euro reserves. That, however, wasn’t the most remarkable takeaway from the SNB’s quarterly report.
More interesting than the massive loss was the line item in the SNB’s balance sheet which shows that 18% of the bank’s assets are held in foreign stocks.
As we noted last week, that amounts to around $100 billion — 15% of Switzerland’s GDP — in equities. This prompted us to praise the bank for its sheer brazenness in owning up to its equity holdings in a world where all plunge-protection-providing central banks are buying stocks but in which no one dares to admit it.
Just what does the SNB hold in its $100 billion stock portfolio? Quite a lot, and more than one-third of its holdings are in US equities. More specifically, the bank owns some $37 billion worth of shares in 2,548 US-listed companies, up an impressive 40% Q/Q. Here are the top 20 holdings:
And here's a look at the Q/Q change (basically, they added to everything):
As you can see from the above, Apple is far and away the largest US position and indeed, the SNB bought some 3.4 million shares of the iPhone maker during the first three months of the year alone, while the value of the bank's stake nearly doubled.
We would be remiss if we failed to point out the hilarious irony inherent in the fact that the SNB, whose abandonment of the EURCHF floor has hit Swiss watchmakers by reducing export comeptitiveness, spent the last three months accumulating a massive stake in the maker of the Apple Watch, a product that many traditional Swiss manufacturers have derided as a fad that's unlikely to withstand the test of err.. time.
As for the SNB being one of the biggest buyers of AAPL, here is how one can explain it:
SNB buys AAPL stock and lowers interest rates to force yield-starved bond investors to give money to Apple, which uses the debt proceeds to buyback AAPL stock, which boosts the value of SNB's AAPL stock.
Q.E... er... D.
Source: 13-F
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The Swiss love watches, I guess that is the "official" reason.
this Economy system is dead in the water
everything is being exposed
Do they own Nestle?
:)
The ghost of Steve Jobs just might crash the world's financial system.
iWonder
WOW! When the market crashes, there's going to be a lot of pain felt around the world. Not just individual investors but countries as well.
Unimaginable pain I would say. Considering how interconnected all the various parts of the system are, domino theory doesn't come close to describing the net effect.
Ultimately the CB's work on the premise they can remove key dominoes from the various lines and halt the crash progression. That may have been an effective strategy decades before.......but no longer.
Yes, we all know the US Stock market is over-priced. But if the TPTB can use spoofing, futures manipulation, and other shenanigans to keep stock prices rising as well as prevent it from crashing, as they have been doing, what will be the catalyst to send it crashing? Bad fundamentals? Nope, doesn't matter. Low volume? Nope, that doesn't appear to be doing the trick either, in fact, that likely aids the spoofing shit. So why can't they do this forever, short of a nuclear bomb hitting Wall Street? What is going to stop the money-printers from jacking this market up til we are all long dead and gone????? Really. Somebody tell me. I wanna know.
The SNB purchase of crAAPL was proxy for Putins interest.
Worse yet. If they announce a financial stimulus to buy stocks right out in the open to rescue 401k retirements and pension plans.
Only price discovery you will get is when you sell some of your belongings as you downsize and go into retirement.
"What is going to stop the money-printers from jacking this market up til we are all long dead and gone?????"
I've been asking this question a long time. No one has an answer, because everyone knows they can and will continue to create new money to prop up the stock and bond markets even when the crash hits. They will step it up to more absurd levels. The effect is price inflation, and it is rampant today (the PPI/CPI is bullshit). Where I live everything is up in price massively. Seniors, middle class and poor are bearing the consequence but there is nothing they can do about it. A lot of people are going to be hurtin when they pump even more inflation into the next pull back.
CD, you were right up above. That thumb on chin job's photo is a tell. Him broadcasting his massah's ineffable name.
Edenic Apple, Bitten, Job's Apple, Bitten, launched in 1984, Apple becomes the darling of the Big Apple.
I think there is a subtle message there. For th efruit of the tree of knowledge ye shall NOT eat.
And here we are.
An Apple a Day.
An Apple on my Desk.
An Apple in my pocket.
An Apple on my wrist.
An apple on my living room wall.
Yes, we are very good at learning from past experience, us humans....
Meanwhile, Sequence 16 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKrzijChaYM
So, the I-Phone, Smart Phone, I-Watch, revolution puts even more pressure on the traditional swiss mechanical watch business.
So, is this considered hedging the collapse of the Swiss watch makers?
No surprise to me. I've said months ago that even foreign central banks are buying stawks. When the whole world is doing QE, that money has to go somewhere, it's not going into their bonds as they know govs are going bankrupt. For now it's going into US stawks.
Oh well tell that to the morgans!
Apples largest insitutional shareholders: ( shares / percentage / value USD )
1. Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 332,239,563 5.77 36,672,602,963 8. JP Morgan Chase & Company 62,979,131 1.09 6,951,636,479 10. Wellington Management Company, LLP 61,752,623 1.07 6,816,254,526Then we go to Top Mutual Fund Holders:
1. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund 98,848,739 1.72 10,910,923,810 2. Vanguard 500 Index Fund 63,618,447 1.10 7,022,204,179 3. Vanguard Institutional Index Fund-Institutional Index Fund 59,983,496 1.04 6,620,978,288okey that didnt work out.
USD
36
6.9
6.9
10,9
7
6.6
Billions. Morgan funded directly from Boston.
You know, the good thing is it only hurts when I think about it.
RIP Granny Smith
I was streaming Sophia Smallstorm's 911 mysteries on Youtoobs thru AAPL TV2. Equipment is on a UPS. Pow, power hit, lights just flickered, but had to boot UPS. The YouToob icon disappeared. As I began to dig, folks o/l were screaming AAPL. So I checked a streaming DVD player, poof gone from there too. It appears this was a GOOG thang. It's no coincidence it coincided with the power hit. These bastids have more control over us than we are aware of. Youtoob app available on AAPL TV3 & newer streaming players. Boosting sales through inventory they can't get rid of.
Next, the only available content will be from the Ministry of Truth.
"iWonder"
iAgree
iSold
I respectfully beg to differ with the lot of you, because I think that you're all looking at it from the wrong (Austrian) paradigm. No, I'm not suggesting the Keynesian alternative, but a "ZiBorg Economics"* alternative, for lack of a better word. Let me explain...
When this thing crashes, it will be Sovereign BONDS and their Derivatives that will go into WTC7 style free-fall. I explained a number of times when & why this will happens (hint: When the Yields on US and German bonds go to Zero).
My contention/hypothesis is that they ALL know that this will happen, and that the only relatively "safe" place to park all that out-of-thin-air fiat Debt and free Currency, is to use it to buy "Stuff": Primary assets (resources) and Secondary Assets (Profitable and Promising Businesses).
No matter how much of a hit these two take, it will tower over the Crash & Burn of Bonds & Bond Derivatives (Default!). Kiss your Bond-based pensions Bye-Bye.
At the risk of having to explain the obvious (or what should be obvious to ZH readers): Over-priced stocks may matter a lot to the small-fry, but not to the Big Fish at the TBTF/TBTJ. This is because the former (you & me) buy stocks from Net Earned Income, whereas the latter buy it via Paper Games (Prime Dealers playing footsie with the Fed). IOW... When you have "Money for Nothing and Checks for Free", THE PRICE OF STOCKS DO NOT MATTER. The only thing that matters, is that they have Ownership/Control of Resources and Businesses. "Prices" are for Sheeple. To them, they are just bookie/book-keeping exercises to them. Get that through your Austrian skull.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But if I'm right, you know what "porn charts" matter (Bond Yields), and which ones you can mostly ignore (all others).
And, as someone else here has pointed out, TPTB are doing their damnedest to hold on till the MIC has their ducks in a row -- for the shit-storm will be Epic and Biblical. Suggest you Invest, Dance and Prepare accordingly.
* ZiBorg. Like the two (real and fictional) entities that the word is coined from, we are dealing with beings who are single-minded and relentless in their worldview, goals and will to rule over all useful and interesting beings, groups, countries and societies. Total and Full-Spectrum Domination -- with particular control in Finance, Media, and Politics. To Them/TPTB/Zio's, their mantra is that of the Borg: "Arguments & Laws are irrelevant. Resistance is futile. Prepare..."
They only hold foreign stocks, because its about fx reserves diversification
It's not a bad portfolio, as long as you don't try to sell it. Liquid assets doesn't mean good assets and if they had to sell off a batch to cover themselves they'd get bent over, but this is how the game is played nowadays.....
It's not quite as bad as I feared it would be, but it could be better. My 4 criteria from last week:
Yeah there is something morally wrong with printing money out of thin air and buying up the equity capital stock of foreign nations. But as long as it is my central bank that's doing it - my ex-banker ethics are OK with it...
1) even in a market crash where they report a huge paper loss, because the equity is backed tangible productive assets and cash flows
2) unless- they are buying equity derivatives and would only have a claim on the assets of Blackrock, Citadel, etc,
3) or unless- they were loading up and over concentrated in momo stocks like iCrap or Twatter with no real underlying assets other an intellectual property.
4) or unless- they are buying Swiss stocks which artficially inflates the value of local companies, and invites unwantedforeign fiat inflows into the local economy.
But otherwise - Party On.
Tsk, there you go tossing commonsense and forethought into the process... :-)
It was nice when we used to talk about investing around here. Too bad someone(s) destroyed the markets for us.
Next Apple Watch to be made from chocolate and cheese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n47C09VU7rE&list=PLDED61B6492A368A8&inde...
Apple's targeting female consumers, the next product will be the iRon.
Started with the iPad, hehe.
dbl post
Make Hitlery ripple donations and get a free one.
You take down AAPL and you take down sovreigns, hedge funds, prop traders...the whole shebang!
Ripe for an ass whipping...That will teach them for going all in.
So they basically could have simplified life and costs by buying a indexed fund linked to the DOW.
they don't do that because etfs have additional risks.
They have 0% investment with banks...That tells me something. :)
lolz it's funny that central banks act like hedge funds openly. Remember the days when no one knew what the President's Working Group was?
Ha!
This shit is starting to remind me of Bank Negara, when they would roll into the FX markets at 5 in the afternoon NY time working some action on 5 yards of Deutchemarks...lulz
I smell another bailout coming.
The last one hasn't stopped! The ECB is buying shit tonnes of shitty bonds everyday!
No, it's the next 911. Swiss National are going to make a Big Apple Crumble.
I heard Apple Kooken.
SURPRISE THEY DONT OWN TWITTER
This is just unbelieveable, wow. Hedge fund, prop trading with tax payers money...
What a massive conflict of interest. I hope they get hosed.
Un-buh-leeeeevable.
This is very interesting. SNB acting like retail investors. Let's see if they can resist the urge to act like mom and pop on the way down.
Wow the Swiss love a US stock!
This can only be epic when the fail comes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3072013/Swatch-making-sma...
Sounds like a merger to me
"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3072013/Swatch-making-sma...
Sounds like a merger to me"
Turn yourself into a walking CHARGER: Battery harvests energy from body heat - and could one day power up mobile phones
fucking bullshit...
Buy Apple but please dont pass that Gold referendumb...
fucking morons....
People laugh at me when I tell them Central Banks by Equities. Call me crazy.
How many Shares of Apple have the Fed's Equity Desk bought over the years? Think that will ever become public?
The Fed is not permitted to directly buy stawks. They fund ' special purpose vehicles ' to do it on their behalf.
http://business.time.com/2013/04/26/why-are-central-banks-suddenly-buying-stocks/
Honest question, what happens when stocks go down? Does the SNB sell? Or are the forced to hold their positions?
Seems like a politcal decision could send stock markets collapsing real quick. Or there is an incentive to keep printing money and "doubling down" on positions.
Strange world
They won't sell when stocks crash, negative equity is irrelevant for a central bank as long as you have a strong currency.
just wait till they dump it in short order,,, just like the depegging... good for fireworks for sure
Well, bag on them if you want but at least they have a foreign reserve account. All Amerca has is a "broke as fuck account"....
just wait till they dump it in short order,,, just like the depegging... good for fireworks for sure
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/bill-clinton-foundation-troubles-i-j...
Swissy people should be angry that they are not investing in their own country...then afraid - the bank will dump it all in one trade.. sell sell sell... will start the cascade...
Could Central Banks buy mining equities as an alternative to actual pm ?
It seems logical if they still hold pm and also equities; the mining equities are the logical crosscut,
swiss masons
investing tribute into cia pentagram entity.
you see jobs had to die by cancer dose that boy
just would not get with the program
saturn and the rabbi love blood
plenty energy in the kinder kids
the iwatch has blood sensors
did you goy nose that
it for your health
saturn time
and blood sensor rings
a ding ding
ohh the rings of saturnia what sweet vampyre musacs they make.
listen my dears do you want to nose a tavistock secret do you promise not to tell.
Apple watch needs to see your blood before it works!
Here's something interesting and creepy beyond belief - the Apple watch needs to see your blood and know it is being worn before it can receive calls and notifications
http://82.221.129.208/iwatchassassination.html
Per Barrie Trower, just thru the wifi in your home or for that fact any EMF they can even tell when a woman's 28 day cycle has come upon her.
Check your appliances for wifi & disconnect it.
Because unlike the analysts at ZH, the people making tech stock picks at the SNB know what they're talking about?
Anyone who listened/listens to Zero Hedge re Apple lost money.
Fact: tech stocks, much like real estate, never devalue.
cute.
guess you didn't make any money, either.
Which makes you an expert.
Is that right?
Settle down Apple fanboy.
Introducing the Apple Watchhttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5nmm0ofA15k
"fanboy"
I bet you use that term a lot.
I also bet you have a beer gut, small cock, live in a shitty 1 br apartment, and have a Cal Ripken-like streak of bad calls under your belt... from stocks to stubbly-chinned "shims" taken home after last call at the local dive.
But please, provide more links that you deem insightful!
Cock.
Hahahahaha. You nailed it, all of the above.
The Swiss buying a toy company with a watch....there is a moral to this story somewhere..
just because it's stupid doesn't mean it won't succeed.
a smart watch is inevitable... this price point is tough though.
"a smart watch is inevitable..."
Smart defined by Merriam Webster:
: very good at learning or thinking about things
: showing intelligence or good judgment
Would someone explain to me exactly where this "smart" bullshit is coming from.
It's a POS digital toy running a POS digital program.
The watch I have is a self winding analog that has served me for 37 years and NO BATTERIES! Most 'smart' POS last maybe 2-3 years.
I'll take dependable over 'smart' digital crap any day.
Someone put too eggs in their basket. A digital iSwatch, what a novel idea!
Those top 20 are all American companies (surprised there's no Nestle'). Good to know. When the SUI start selling it will signal urine trouble and implosion is coming.
What would Roger Federer do?
Someone forward info on that corn dog truck IPO.
These companies are foreign corporations.
As alien as Ted Cruz.
Ted is every bit a citizen as is our precious el presidenti.
Report immediately to your local re-education camp!
If proof were needed that Central Banks are major equity investors, our friends in Zurich have provided it.
Do other national Central Banks makes similar disclosures, such as the FED? Not a chance.
If nothing else the SNB should be commended for their candour.
so pretty much the swiss national bank can tank the U.S. Equities market any time it wants.So , sofar its pretty much The Fed, the Swiss national bank, commercial banks and Japan (from what we know) propping up the U.S. Equities market.
So pretty much insiders counterfeiting money at their central banks and using it to control asset prices so they can conduct inside trading and profit, and probably endup as some WallStreet guru on the cover of forbes lol . . .
Yep,,, Pretty much.
In my humble opinion, forget Western tech firms and look at Russian Yota phone, nuclear tech (particularly closed loop reactors and maybe thorium), resource exploration (deep sea and arctic) and space (rocket tech, arms and near orbit space stations, and finally firms involved with robotics, particularly military, aviation and exploration.
Russias balance of trade is upwards at 25 degrees, so plenty of cashflow for these projects, and investment from others to buy this stuff or couple with joint ventures, mostly these will be Russia manufactured or in joint venture partners.
arctic is huge where nuclear energy is going to be requisite.
test 1
Wrap them in stock certificates and burn the plutarchs.
Apple,,, A usa company. ROFLMAO Hell, at least Samsung, Sony and the rest claim their country of origin.
Just another POS Chinese slave labor, tax cheating, slimeball corporation that screws Americans on a daily basis selling a $10 product for $800.
The corporation I slave for gave me an IPAD so that they can boast its employees are truely a high tech mobil company. The POS lays in the back of my truck. Half of the time it doesn't work,,, the other half it's updating the firmware and apps.Totally uselesss. But hey,,,, They say I'm more productive....
really - half the time, and you have an ipad, not some other 70 buck tablet - half the time it doesnt work, and when it is working, it is updating apps and firmware?
You're either lying, or have no real idea about the most basic operations of your device.
Or both, I suppose.
But your description strains credulity.
Haven't these guys heard of the London Whale? Or maybe the SNB hired Bruno and he is now the Zurich Whale.
Pretty soon, centrall banks will own everything. Why not? Just print unlimited money and buy up every stock. Maybe that's their plan to rule the world. They already bought most of the politicians.
other than nuclear armed ex-Communist Russia and Iran, I don't see any barriers to that strategy.
well then I guess the Swiss govt owns a whole lot of political advertising dollars, shouldn't all those companies have to register as foreign agents?
You just can't make this stuff up. The Swiss shackle hedge. But it could shackle the Swiss down when the stockbuybacks stop and the Apple shackle turns out to be nothing more than a temporary hipster hype.
Introducing The Apple Watch Hand - CONAN on TBS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5SYxva1inM
As a Swiss I feel quite ashamed that our central bank is committing the same follies of the big ones (FED, ECB, BoJ) then again it was to be expected that they work together in one way or the other. I hope political pressure grows to start reducing its balance sheet in the coming years if there is still time. So the beating won't be as bad when the storm comes... :(
they wont reduce the balance sheet in the foreseeable future. They could barely stop the expansion by giving up the floor under EUR/CHF in January.
I know plus the franc would start appreciating. But assuming the bank is just taking this risk to avoid deflation from a too strong franc, what other option would it have to combat the inflow of hot money? Other than negative interest rates? They could buy gold instead of shares of course, and while gold on the long run is the save bet as a central bank you need to diversify your assets as well.
I'm just trying to the understand alternatives the bank would have to keep the franc from appreciating too strongly other than buying some shares that at any moment may devalue a lot...
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Why haven’t the CB’s declared themselves to be in the market with a transparency that leaves no question as to the reason?
What is the mandate from the CBs to be in the market? When did that ever arise, how and why did it change from the idea that ‘They never had one.’ or is this more of the horse shit childish games like the NSA being allowed to continue spying on your phone calls, because nobody said they couldn’t?
What are the goals of the CB in the market? id est buy low sell high? If this rational economic argument is indeed not the raison d’etre then what is the reason?
Please note, why would central banks be in the business of buying stocks to sell, in order to MAKE money, WHEN THEY MAKE ƒµç?¡?? MONEY?!?!?!
How, depending upon the reasoning behind the equity purchases, how are we, as investors, supposed to be able to make rational investment decisions along side this elephant in the marketplace?
What is their exit strategy, considering the staggering amount of money that will undoubted leave the marketplace and the corresponding price falling and how will they deal with this? Does this not demand a meaningful transparent explanation of exactly why they are in the marketplace in the first place?
Does not the lack of any explanation mean nobody should be in the market now that we understand the CBs are in the market and we don’t know why?
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