Fund titan Blue Whale dumps Big Tech stocks
Peter Hargreaves-backed fund Blue Whale has backed out of Big Tech stocks as the sector continues feels the sting of inflationary concerns.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Blue Whale fund manager Stephen Yiu said it had divested in Amazon, Meta and Alphabet in recent months, marking a major shift away from growth stocks.
“The reason we’ve now exited is because they’re being impacted by bigger macro issues, mainly inflation and the squeeze on consumers’ disposable income,” he said.
Yiu specifically said that the fund had pulled away from Google’s parent firm Alphabet because of rising concerns about tightened advertising budgets: citing fears surrounding recession.
He told the FT that the downturn of stay-at-home stocks like Netflix had also weighed heavy on the wider market.
Last month, Blue Whale said the fund fell 30 per cent in the first half of 2022, with the Nasdaq also falling 29 per cent in the year to date.
The fund has shifted its focus onto rail companies, adding Canadian National Railway and Union Pacific to its portfolio.