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Julius Baer of Zurich increased its stake in Intel in the fourth quarter.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
A big Swiss bank made a call in chip stocks, and loaded up on media and entertainment shares.
Julius Baer of Zurich bought up
Intel
(ticker: INTC), Walt
Disney
(DIS), and
AT&T
(T) stock, and sold the vast majority of its investment in
Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD) in the fourth quarter. The private bank disclosed the stock trades in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The bank said it doesn’t comment on individual holdings. It managed assets of $470 billion as of the end of October.
Intel
stock tumbled 49% in 2022, compared with a 19% drop in the
S&P 500 index.
So far in 2023 shares are up 6.5% compared with a 6.0% rise in the index. Julius Baer bought 21,715 more shares of Intel to end the fourth quarter with 198,392.
The company’s fourth-quarter report and financial forecasts, issued Thursday, were disappointing, showing demand for PCs continues to plunge. Earnings reports and guidance issued last year were also sprinkled with weaker-than-expected numbers. Job cuts remain on the table.
Disney stock, meanwhile, tumbled 44% in 2022, but so far this year shares have surged 26%. Julius Baer bought 36,617 more Disney shares to end 2022 with 359,185.
In November, Disney CEO Bob Chapek wrote in an internal memo that layoffs were likely, along with other cost-cutting measures. Before the month was over, Chapek himself was out, succeeded by his predecessor,
Bob Iger.
January saw activist investor Nelson Peltz knock on the door of the Magic Kingdom.
AT&T stock slipped only 1% in 2022, when adjusted for the merger of its media assets with Discover to form
Warner Bros. Discovery
(WBD). So far this year, AT&T shares have gained 8.4%. The bank bought 112,078 additional shares to end 2022 with 759,763 shares of the telecom giant.
Earlier this month, AT&T reported a strong fourth quarter, marked with gains in wireless subscribers, and a charge related to its landline business. Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches said the security of its dividend “is very high.”
AMD’s third quarter, reported Nov. 1, was weaker than expected. CEO
Lisa Su
told Barron’s at the beginning of 2023 that AMD was focused on artificial intelligence. “AI has been around for quite some time,” Su said, “but we’re at an inflection point, touching all of our technologies, from chips for consumer devices up to the largest chips we build for data centers. You need AI capability in every one of those devices.”
AMD stock tumbled 55% in 2022, but so far this year shares are up 16%. Julius Baer sold 788,875 AMD shares to slash its investment to 71,364.
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
www.barrons.com
