Tesla Institutional Investor Movement- Mixed Bag- Mostly Positive
I said I would post when the latest release of institutional holdings on Tesla to come out to see if the "smart money" had any change in sentiment. The answer seems to be: Not really. If anything, there are some large institutional investors showing continued bullish trends, with a few even becoming wildly bullish and making huge moves, clearly expecting lots of upside. And I am a Tesla bear holding a battered short position but trying to remain at least a little objective on this matter. If this is what the "smart money" is doing, it doesn't look good for the bears.
From the previous round of reports posted on the Nasdaq website, overall institutional ownership increased 1.11% from 47.37% to 48.48%. Additionally, the total number of institutional holders increased 1.75%, from 4020 to 4091. Just looking at the 3/31/25 filing date, there were 138 firms that opened new positions and 362 that completely closed their positions. Most firms that were both opening new positions and closing positions were relatively small in terms of total shares bought/sold with the exception of Nuveen, which opened a huge new position (listed below).
I don't have access to the raw data but here are some notable moves from the 3/31/25 (submitted/visible 45-days after) reporting date of the larger firms that have substantial holdings of Tesla that are at least in the billions.
**Buyers (shares/% increase in overall position):**
|Institution|Shares Added|Percent Increase in Position|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Vanguard|3,694,524|1.519%|
|Blackrock|3,482,055|1.722%|
|Geode Capital Management|2,487,085|4.076%|
|JPM\*|3,426,144|9.52%|
|Goldman Sachs|14,670,839|123.081%|
|Charles Schwab|849,091|4.901%|
|Invesco|2,211,300|17.585%|
|Nuveen|12,531,327|new|
|Citigroup|3,611,937|47.184%|
|Deutsche Bank|1,733,531|20.778%|
|Assenagon Asset Management|2,978,026|54.277%|
|Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group|456,356|5.793%|
|Swiss National Bank|26,100|0.321%|
|Hsbc Holdings|19,426|0.242%|
|National Bank Of Canada\*|5,566,098|307.721%|
|Franklin Resources|860|0.013%|
|National Pension Service|172,845|3.345%|
|Mitsubishi Ufj Asset Management|578,266|12.34%|
|Rhumbline Advisers|20,295|0.39%|
|Dimensional Fund Advisors|119,500|2.577%|
|Wells Fargo|1,176,846|35.262%|
|Aberdeen Group|1,729,053|65.228%|
*\*JPM analyst has one of the lowest price targets on Tesla and Canada was supposed to be "mad" at America. Ha! Not so much obviously...*
**Sellers (shares/% decrease in overall position):**
|Institution|Shares Sold|Percent Decrease In Position|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Capital World Investors|(954,950)|\-2.317%|
|Fmr LLC|(4,448,041)|\-12.883%|
|Northern Trust Corp|(992,003)|\-3.471%|
|Bank Of New York Mellon|(418,764)|\-2.46%|
|Wellington Management Group|(1,285,882)|\-12.639%|
|Jennison Associates|(994,502)|\-10.239%|
|Capital Research Global Investors|(755,524)|\-9.637%|
|Primecap Management|(473,525)|\-6.267%|
|American Century Companies|(157,691)|\-2.183%|
|Bank Of Montreal|(50,142)|\-0.729%|
|Ubs Group Ag|(757,244)|\-10.429%|
|California Public Employees Retirement System\*|(60,314)|\-1.265%|
|Principal Financial Group Inc|(165,095)|\-4.362%|
|New York State Common Retirement Fund\*|(112,326)|\-3.195%|
|Ark Investment Management|(28,594)|\-0.87%|
*\*I assume these sales are politically motivated to some extent.*
Again, trying to be objective here, it clearly looks like moves to the upside are being made by more prominent name firms and in more dramatic fashion. There are two firms with over a billion in holdings that added triple digit percent increases and Nuveen, that made a massive move to rush in. Of course, I could go down the huge list of transactions and cherry pick things to paint the picture either way. Are there firms with hundreds of millions in holdings cutting their position by \~50%? Yes. But there are actually more making the opposite/optimistic move (as the overall numbers at the beginning of this post indicate).
My takeaway: The big boys are making huge moves on Tesla. There is a lot of institutional activity in general, with astonishing sums of money being injected into the stock by big name firms. Net flows in are larger than net flows out. Don't shoot the messenger- But the indicator is bullish. And the recent stock trend reflects it.