TSLA Holders Q1'20 (Top 58)

Introduction

A few months ago, I published this post:

The Mechanisms That Fueled TSLA's Meteoric Q1'20 Rise

It contained a section listing the top 50 biggest TSLA shareholders at the end of 2019, and some details about what type of shareholder each of them is; long term investor, short term trader, market maker, index fund, etc.

Now, a few months later, all big institutional investors and funds have reported their holdings at the end of Q1'20 to the SEC, so I am writing this blog to update my TSLA Holders spreadsheet, and to take a quick look at what has changed among Tesla's biggest shareholders.

First off, here are links to the updated spreadsheet:

TSLA Holders Q1'20 - PDF

TSLA Holders Q1'20 - Excel

TSLA Holders Q1'20 - Numbers

Some data was taken directly from SEC Filings, but I got most of the data from Fintel.io, which is an excellent resource for finding out about institutional and insider ownership in companies.

I'll briefly go over the largest 58 TSLA shareholders, and also 6 institutions that used to be large TSLA shareholders, but have significantly reduced their stakes as of the end of Q1'20. I'm going to add commentary to some of these, where there are interesting observations to make, but for a lot of them I'll just be providing the numbers and/or charts.

Top 58 TSLA Holders Q1'20

#1: Elon Musk

Type of Investor: Insider

Previous Rank: #1

Previous Shares: 38,658,670

Current Shares: 38,658,670

Change: 0%

Ownership Stake: 20.9%

#2: Baillie Gifford

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #2

Previous Shares: 13,826,979

Current Shares: 12,076,416

Change: -12.7%

Ownership Stake: 6.5%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/baillie-gifford-

This is the least amount of TSLA shares Baillie has held since Q1'16, but before we draw any conclusions let's look at how Baillie's overall portfolio changed during the tumultuous Q1'20.

https://fintel.io/i/baillie-gifford-#

TSLA is actually one of the biggest percentage increases in terms of portfolio allocation among Baillie's top holdings, alongside NFLX, TAL, and NVDA. Therefore, I'd guess that Baillie's slight reduction in their TSLA stake is mostly due to the COVID-19 crisis and some shuffling around of resources.

#3: Capital World Investors

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #3

Previous Shares: 10,694,412

Current Shares: 10,714,131

Change: +0.2%

Ownership Stake: 5.8%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/capital-world-investors

CWI's TSLA stake stayed almost exactly the same throughout Q1'20.

https://fintel.io/i/capital-world-investors

However, we can see that TSLA increased significantly as a portion of CWI's overall holdings. This is mostly a combination of TSLA being up ~25% at the end of Q1'20 compared to the end of Q4'19 ($525 vs $420), and also due to CWI reducing various position sizes, such as its largest position in MSFT, while keeping its TSLA position the same.

#4: Vanguard Group Inc

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #4

Previous Shares: 8,405,321

Current Shares: 8,662,781

Change: +3.1%

Ownership Stake: 4.7%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/vanguard-group

Vanguard has once again increased its stake in Tesla.

https://fintel.io/i/vanguard-group

Because Vanguard has over $2T in total AUM, it should be no surprise that TSLA is a tiny portion of Vanguard's overall portfolio at about 0.2%.

#5: BlackRock Inc

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #5

Previous Shares: 6,705,855

Current Shares: 7,213,587

Change: +7.6%

Ownership Stake: 3.9%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/blackrock

I'm not surprised that BlackRock added onto their TSLA position in Q1'20, because of its sustainable investing announcement in early January.

https://fintel.io/i/blackrock

BlackRock has even more AUM (almost $4T), so similarly to Vanguard, TSLA comprises only a small portion of BlackRock's overall portfolio.

#6: Growth Fund of America

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #7

Previous Shares: 5,109,532

Current Shares: 5,080,353

Change: -0.6%

Ownership Stake: 2.7%

This mutual fund is managed by #3 Capital World Investors. For some reason this fund reports its holdings as of the end of each second month in a quarter, so these numbers are for the end of February, rather than the end of March as is the case with almost all of the numbers in this blog.

#7: Fidelity

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #6

Previous Shares: 5,272,261

Current Shares: 4,615,556

Change: -12.5%

Ownership Stake: 2.5%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/fmr-llc

https://fintel.io/i/fmr-llc

Fidelity decreased its stake in Tesla quite significantly during Q1'20. TSLA still grew as a percentage of Fidelity's overall portfolio, but whereas its stake in Tesla decreased, it acquired shares in companies such as Amazon, NVIDIA, Netflix, and Uber.

To me it feels like Fidelity is not as optimistic about Tesla at its new valuations as some of the other large investors in this list. I feel like Fidelity would likely be the first out of this top 7 to reduce its stake if TSLA shot up to over $1,000, or even $2,000.

#8: Jennison Associates LLC

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #10

Previous Shares: 3,911,886

Current Shares: 4,320,630

Change: +10.4%

Ownership Stake: 2.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/jennison-associates-llc

https://fintel.io/i/jennison-associates-llc

Although Jennison had recently been decreasing its TSLA stake, it looks like they either really liked the Q4'19 numbers, or they decided to buy the COVID-19 dip in March, because they added 10% to their already large position in TSLA.

#9: Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund

Type of Investor: Index Fund

Previous Rank: #8

Previous Shares: 4,061,593

Current Shares: 4,229,383

Change: +4.1%

Ownership Stake: 2.3%

#10: New Perspective Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #11

Previous Shares: 3,377,612

Current Shares: 3,377,612

Change: +0%

Ownership Stake: 1.8%

This fund is also managed by #3 Capital World Investors.

#11: State Street Corp

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #13

Previous Shares: 2,995,206

Current Shares: 3,095,851

Change: +3.4%

Ownership Stake: 1.7%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/state-street

Even though I personally had never heard of this institutional investor before, they actually have over $1T in AUM (Assets Under Management).

#12: Larry Ellison

Type of Investor: Insider

Previous Rank: #12

Previous Shares: 3,001,250

Current Shares: 3,001,250

Change: +0%

Ownership Stake: 1.6%

#13: JP Morgan Chase & CO

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #14

Previous Shares: 2,537,599

Current Shares: 2,816,285

Change: +11.0%

Ownership Stake: 1.5%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/jpmorgan-chase-

It looks like JP Morgan is back in TSLA with a vengeance. They bought back in big time after Q3'19 ER, and have held on to their stake, and even increased it, in spite of the stock more than doubling at one point during Q1'20.

#14: Goldman Sachs Group Inc

Type of Investor: Short Term Trading Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #35

Previous Shares: 793,602

Current Shares: 2,702,701

Change: +240.6%

Ownership Stake: 1.5%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/goldman-sachs-group

https://fintel.io/i/goldman-sachs-group

GS significantly increased its stake in Tesla in Q1'20, by more than tripling it, but I believe that Goldman is more of a short to medium term trader based on its track record of often drastically increasing and decreasing its stake in the company.

#15: Vanguard International Growth Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #17

Previous Shares: 1,894,281

Current Shares: 2,241,608

Change: +18.3%

Ownership Stake: 1.2%

https://fintel.io/i/vanguard-world-fund-vanguard-international-growth-fund-investor-shares

TSLA is one of this fund's largest holdings.

This is another weird fund that reports holdings as of the end of the second month of each quarter.

#16: Vanguard Extended Market Index Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #15

Previous Shares: 2,020,441

Current Shares: 2,031,507

Change: +0.5%

Ownership Stake: 1.1%

#17: American Funds Insurance Series

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #16

Previous Shares: 1,908,500

Current Shares: 1,908,500

Change: +0%

Ownership Stake: 1.0%

This is another fund managed by #3 Capital World Investors.

#18: Invesco QQQ Trust

Type of Investor: Index Fund

Previous Rank: #18

Previous Shares: 1,782,180

Current Shares: 1,906,125

Change: +7.0%

Ownership Stake: 1.0%

An index fund tracking the QQQ, which consists of the top 100 highest market cap companies in the NASDAQ.

#19: Bamco Inc

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #20

Previous Shares: 1,627,120

Current Shares: 1,615,174

Change: -0.7%

Ownership Stake: 0.9%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/bamco-inc-ny-

https://fintel.io/i/bamco-inc-ny-

TSLA is this investor's third largest position at 4.15% of its portfolio. You can also see that Bamco sold shares in most of its largest positions, but that Bamco basically kept TSLA even, and that TSLA increased more than any other large position as a percentage of the overall portfolio. In my opinion, this is a very strong sign about how this investor feels about TSLA long term.

#20: Primecap Management Co

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #22

Previous Shares: 1,537,130

Current Shares: 1,545,640

Change: +0.6%

Ownership Stake: 0.8%

#21: Geode Capital LLC

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #24

Previous Shares: 1,288,228

Current Shares: 1,463,633

Change: +13.6%

Ownership Stake: 0.8%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/geode-capital-management-llc

https://fintel.io/i/geode-capital-management-llc

I love these guys. It really seems as if their brokerage just doesn't have a sell button, because all they seem to do is buy. Geode has so far never reduced its TSLA position during a quarter, and increased it by a very large 13.6% in Q1'20.

Geode's AUM are rather large at $384B, so TSLA still only makes up a tiny percentage of its overall portfolio, so there is a lot of room for further buying, if Geode so chooses.

#22: Nuveen Asset Management LLC

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Missing from last blog post. Would've been #22.

Previous Shares: 1,566,544

Current Shares: 1,454,953

Change: -7.1%

Ownership Stake: 0.8%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/nuveen-asset-management-llc

https://fintel.io/i/nuveen-asset-management-llc

I somehow missed this investor in my last blog post. Perhaps some data was missing on Fintel.io, which happens on ocassion. Either way, although Nuveen is relatively new to investing in TSLA, for now it's looking like it's more likely to be in it for the long term than to make a quick buck.

#23: Harbor Capital Appreciation Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #23

Previous Shares: 1,415,292

Current Shares: ???

Change: ???

Ownership Stake: ???

This fund also does not report its holdings as of the end of every quarter, but as of the first month of every quarter. This means that it will report its holdings as of the end of April, but it has not yet done so as of this writing. It should file its next NPORT-P with the SEC some time later this month.

#24: Norges Bank

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #33

Previous Shares: 855,769

Current Shares: 1,340,664

Change: +56.7%

Ownership Stake: 0.7%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/norges-bank

In my previous blog post, I suggested that Norges sold out of its entire TSLA position after the terrible Q1'19 ER, and rebought into TSLA after the tremendous Q3'19 ER. However, after doing some more research and looking up Norges Bank's 13-F Filings from Q2'19 and Q3'19, it turns out that those filings are completely empty.

Norges Bank 13-F Q2'19

Norges Bank 13-F Q3'19

You can click on the Q2_2019 and Q3_2019 .html files to see for yourself that they are completely empty, compared to the Q1'20 13-F, which is filled with tons of positions.

Regardless of what the hell was going on with this bank in Q2'19 and Q3'19, in Q1'20 Norges Bank significantly increased its TSLA position back to the levels of late 2018 and early 2019.

#25: J. Safra Asset Management Corp

Type of Investor: New Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: New

Previous Shares: 2,500

Current Shares: 1,310,000

Change: +52,400%

Ownership Stake: 0.7%

Although this investor has owned TSLA shares in the past, it has never been more than 5,000 shares until now. According to Wikipedia, this is a private banking company, owned by a families of Brazilian billionaires. It'll be interesting to follow going forward how J. Safra's TSLA position will change, and whether they are in it for the long term, or simply making a short term trade.

#26: JP Morgan Large Cap Growth Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #28

Previous Shares: 1,106,000

Current Shares: 1,222,300

Change: +10.5%

Ownership Stake: 0.7%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/jpmorgan-trust-ii-jpmorgan-large-cap-growth-fund-class-i

https://fintel.io/i/jpmorgan-trust-ii-jpmorgan-large-cap-growth-fund-class-i

Although TSLA is a relatively new investment for this SEEGX mutual fund, it is already one of its largest positions.

#27: Sumitomo Mitsui Trust

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #25

Previous Shares: 1,228,142

Current Shares: 1,131,376

Change: -7.9%

Ownership Stake: 0.6%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/sumitomo-mitsui-trust-holdings

https://fintel.io/i/sumitomo-mitsui-trust-holdings

Although TSLA did increase as an overall percentage of Sumitomo's overall portfolio, it actually increased its stake in the majority of its holdings, and not just in the handful shown in this screenshot. Looking through its portfolio, it looks like Sumitomo increased its stake in ~97-98% of its holdings.

Most of this likely happened during the COVID-19 crash, and TSLA was still up a lot during that period, but nonetheless I think it's not the best sign for this investor's understanding of TSLA's long term potential, and it could be a sign that it might sell off (some of) its stake during a large rally.

#28: Baron Partners Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #29

Previous Shares: 1,100,000

Current Shares: 1,100,000

Change: +0%

Ownership Stake: 0.6%

#29: Vanguard Growth Index Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #31

Previous Shares: 1,076,516

Current Shares: 1,093,753

Change: +1.6%

Ownership Stake: 0.6%

#30: Vanguard U.S. Growth Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #27

Previous Shares: 1,118,671

Current Shares: 1,067,153

Change: -4.6%

Ownership Stake: 0.6%

#31: Northern Trust Corp

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #32

Previous Shares: 924,909

Current Shares: 955,673

Change: +3.3%

Ownership Stake: 0.5%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/northern-trust

#32: Citigroup Inc

Type of Investor: Short Term Trading Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 427,194

Current Shares: 933,814

Change: +118.6%

Ownership Stake: 0.5%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/citigroup

https://fintel.io/i/citigroup

Considering the large amount of PUT and CALL options this investor holds, and how often it trades in and out of its TSLA position, it seems likely to me that Citigroup is a short to medium term trader trying to outsmart the market.

#33: Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #34

Previous Shares: 829,681

Current Shares: ???

Change: ???

Ownership Stake: ???

This fund reports its holdings as of the end of the first month of each quarter, so we should find out how its TSLA position had changed as of the end of April later this month.

#34: Fidelity Growth Company Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #30

Previous Shares: 1,081,596

Current Shares: 792,506

Change: -26.7%

Ownership Stake: 0.4%

https://fintel.io/i/fidelity-mt-vernon-street-trust-fidelity-growth-company-fund

These numbers are as of the end of February rather than the end of March. It looks like this fund had reduced its stake in a lot of positions as of that date, perhaps due to the COVID-19 crisis that had just gotten underway. TSLA is definitely an outlier in that that position was reduced a lot more than others, but this could've happened near the peak around a SP of $900. It's possible that this fund increased its stake in TSLA at some point during the dip in March, but we'll have to wait another 2-3 months to find out for sure.

#35: Susquehanna International

Type of Investor: TSLA Market Maker

Previous Rank: #21

Previous Shares: 1,597,435

Current Shares: 785,090

Change: -50.9%

Ownership Stake: 0.4%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/susquehanna-international-group-llp

https://fintel.io/i/susquehanna-international-group-llp

I'm very confident that this is a TSLA market maker, because almost its entire portfolio is nothing but PUT and CALL options, and because Wikipedia says so. These shares are only for delta hedging purposes, and I reckon that as the stock shot up in the past few months, Susquehanna will have again increased the number of TSLA shares on its balance sheet.

#36: Legal & General Group PLC

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #38

Previous Shares: 738,045

Current Shares: 774,042

Change: +4.9%

Ownership Stake: 0.4%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/legal-general-group

#37: Renaissance LLC

Type of Investor: Algorithm Hedge Fund

Previous Rank: #9

Previous Shares: 3,938,142

Current Shares: 767,506

Change: -80.5%

Ownership Stake: 0.4%

As I expected last quarter, Renaissance did not hold onto their TSLA stake very long.

#38: Fidelity Extended Market Index Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #43

Previous Shares: 682,012

Current Shares: 699,703

Change: +2.6%

Ownership Stake: 0.4%

#39: Morgan Stanley

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #39

Previous Shares: 726,884

Current Shares: 668,668

Change: -8.0%

Ownership Stake: 0.4%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/morgan-stanley

#40: Bank of New York Mellon Corp

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #41

Previous Shares: 706,403

Current Shares: 652,243

Change: -7.7%

Ownership Stake: 0.4%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/bank-of-new-york-mellon

#41: Wells Fargo & Company

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 512,211

Current Shares: 629,171

Change: +22.8%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/wells-fargo-company-mn

#42: Vanguard Primecap Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 511,000

Current Shares: 625,000

Change: +22.3%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

#43: Whale Rock Capital Management LLC

Type of Investor: New Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 328,979

Current Shares: 604,748

Change: +83.8%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/whale-rock-capital-management-llc

https://fintel.io/i/whale-rock-capital-management-llc

Whale Rock isn't entirely new to investing in TSLA, but this is the first time it's held such a large position. In fact, TSLA is currently Whale Rock's third largest holding, which shows a ton of confidence in the stock. I'd also guess that this is not a short term trade, because judging from Whale Rock's other holdings, it does not usually do short term trades.

https://fintel.io/so/us/amzn/whale-rock-capital-management-llc

https://fintel.io/so/us/shop/whale-rock-capital-management-llc

https://fintel.io/so/us/googl/whale-rock-capital-management-llc

https://fintel.io/so/us/baba/whale-rock-capital-management-llc

#44: ARK Investment LLC

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor / Mutual Funds

Previous Rank: #40

Previous Shares: 721,988

Current Shares: 596,649

Change: -17.4%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/i/ark-investment-management

ARK may have reduced its position in TSLA, it is still ARK's top holding and only limited by rules that dictate no more than a certain percentage of each of ARK's funds can be invested in a single stock.

#45: Advisor Group Holdings Inc

Type of Investor: New Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: New

Previous Shares: 0

Current Shares: 585,519

Change: New

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

A new investor. Its stake was worth around $300M as of the end of Q1, which means that it was a little over 1% of this investor's $25B portfolio. This puts TSLA among Advisor Group Holdings' biggest investments.

#46: UBS Asset Management Americas Inc

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 490,024

Current Shares: 546,668

Change: +11.6%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/ubs-asset-management-americas

#47: Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co LLC

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 556,114

Current Shares: 540,757

Change: -2.8%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/gilder-gagnon-howe-co-llc

https://fintel.io/i/gilder-gagnon-howe-co-llc

#48: Coatue Management LLC

Type of Investor: New Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: New

Previous Shares: 0

Current Shares: 534,770

Change: New

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

#49: Swiss National Bank

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 423,553

Current Shares: 524,653

Change: +23.9%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/swiss-national-bank

#50: Ultra Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #46

Previous Shares: 510,000

Current Shares: ???

Change: ???

Ownership Stake: ???

Another fund that will report its position as of the end of April later this month.

#51: Nikko Asset Management Americas Inc

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #42

Previous Shares: 703,937

Current Shares: 493,589

Change: -29.9%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/i/nikko-asset-management-americas

Despite the significant reduction, TSLA is still Nikko's third biggest position. I wouldn't be surprised if after Q2 the TSLA position will have been further reduced, so that it doesn't make up too large a portion of the entire portfolio.

#52: Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #49

Previous Shares: 573,259

Current Shares: 485,250

Change: -15.4%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/mitsubishi-ufj-trust-banking

https://fintel.io/i/mitsubishi-ufj-trust-banking

It looks like MUFJ increased its stake in most of its biggest holdings during the start of the COVID-19 crisis, and that the reduction in its stake in Tesla is an exception. This makes me think that MUFJ is a little less optimistic about TSLA long term than some of the other investors in the list.

#53: iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF

Type of Investor: Index Fund

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 458,592

Current Shares: 469,907

Change: +2.5%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

#54: American Century Companies Inc

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #37

Previous Shares: 771,837

Current Shares: 465,449

Change: -39.7%

Ownership Stake: 0.3%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/american-century-companies

It looks like this investor did not entirely agree with TSLA's meteoric rise in Q1, or simply thought it was an unsustainable run.

#55: Ctc LLC

Type of Investor: TSLA Market Maker

Previous Rank: New

Previous Shares: 8,188

Current Shares: 453,514

Change: +5,538.7%

Ownership Stake: 0.2%

https://fintel.io/i/ctc-llc

This is almost certainly a TSLA Market Maker judging from the fact that most of its portfolio consists of CALL and PUT options. Therefore, the shares were most likely bought for delta hedging purposes.

#56: BNP Paribas Arbitrage

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor? Hedge Fund?

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 442,165

Current Shares: 445,932

Change: +0.9%

Ownership Stake: 0.2%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/bnp-paribas-arbitrage

https://fintel.io/i/bnp-paribas-arbitrage

On one hand, BNP's TSLA position has been fairly steady for most of the past few years, and been increasing slightly but steadily. On the other hand, the majority of this investor's portfolio consists of PUT and CALL options, which is unusual for a long term investor. To be honest I'm not sure what type of investor this is.

#57: Credit Suisse

Type of Investor: Short Term Trading Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: Did not make the top 50

Previous Shares: 447,553

Current Shares: 433,351

Change: -3.2%

Ownership Stake: 0.2%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/credit-suisse-ag-

https://fintel.io/i/credit-suisse-ag-

This investor has often drastically changed the size of its stake in Tesla, and a large portion of its portfolio consists of PUT and CALL options. It seems to me Credit Suisse tries to outsmart the market through short and medium term trades, rather than buy & hold smart investments.

#58: Growth Account Class R1

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #48

Previous Shares: 576,504

Current Shares: 404,276

Change: -29.9%

Ownership Stake: 0.2%

Ex-Top TSLA Holders

The rest of these are no longer the biggest TSLA shareholders in order, but rather a few investors that were in the top 50 last quarter, but no longer are.

Deutsche Bank

Type of Investor: Short Term Trading Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #44

Previous Shares: 665,153

Current Shares: 376,486

Change: -43.4%

Ownership Stake: 0.2%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/deutsche-bank-ag-

Deutsche Bank has frequently increased and decreased its TSLA position over time, so there's not really anything new to see here.

Price T Rowe

Type of Investor: Ex-Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #19

Previous Shares: 1,715,603

Current Shares: 323,702

Change: -81.1%

Ownership Stake: 0.2%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/price-t-rowe-associates-inc-md-

Price T Rowe, who was once Tesla's biggest investor, has now effectively sold its entire stake in the company.

Fidelity International Ltd

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor?

Previous Rank: #47

Previous Shares: 578,319

Current Shares: 266,990

Change: -53.8%

Ownership Stake: 0.1%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/fil

https://fintel.io/i/fil

It looks like Fidelity International actually increased its stake in most of its largest holdings. TSLA is not among its largest holdings, but nonetheless I think this could be a sign that this investor does not believe TSLA is worth anywhere close to $1,000 as of right now.

Royal Bank of Canada

Type of Investor: Long Term Institutional Investor

Previous Rank: #45

Previous Shares: 660,722

Current Shares: 188,719

Change: -71.4%

Ownership Stake: 0.1%

https://fintel.io/so/us/tsla/royal-bank-of-canada

It looks like RBC might've found TSLA extremely undervalued after its fantastic Q3'19 and Q4'19 ERs. As of right now, it appears as if RBC has returned its stake in TSLA to its pre-Q3'19 ER size.

D.E. Shaw & CO

Type of Investor: Algorithm Hedge Fund

Previous Rank: #26

Previous Shares: 1,196,882

Current Shares: 14,909

Change: -98.8%

Ownership Stake: 0.0%

T. Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund

Type of Investor: Mutual Fund

Previous Rank: #36

Previous Shares: 789,200

Current Shares: 0

Change: -100.0%

Ownership Stake: 0.0%

Just as the company managing this fund (Price T Rowe) sold out of most of its TSLA position, so did this fund.

TSLA Holders Q1'20 Overview

The total is the total percentage in the hands of the investors in this spreadsheet. The shares available is the total shares outstanding plus the synthetic shares from the open short interest. The unaccounted are the shares owned by everybody excluding the investors in this spreadsheet.

A few observations:

1. The largest 50 or so investors combined hold approximately three times as many shares as all other investors combined. The stock price really is largely determined by just a couple of big players.
2. The "unaccounted for" stayed almost exactly the same, so the biggest difference between Q4'19 and Q1'20 is that some large institutional investors sold their shares to shorts who covered their positions.
3. Although it was a pretty hectic quarter due to the COVID-19 crisis, if you exclude a handful of investors who were already on their way out (Price T Rowe), some short term traders (Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Canada), and some algo hedge funds (Renaissance, D.E. Shaw), most of Tesla's large long term investors slightly increased their stakes QoQ.

Robinhood

As a little bonus, here is how Robinhood user sentiment changed in TSLA during Q1'20.

https://robintrack.net/symbol/TSLA

Although this is only an indicator of overall retail sentiment, it shows that a lot of retail investors added TSLA into their portfolio during Q1'20, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

Fractional shares trading is available on Robinhood, so not all of these ~200k Robinhood users with TSLA in their portfolio held 1 or more shares. However, even if the average TSLA shares in these Robinhood accounts is only 5 or 10 shares, that's still an additional 1 to 2 million shares owned by Robinhood users alone, which is not bad.

Final Thoughts

I don't really have any other specific conclusions to draw from this data, especially because Q1'20 was quite crazy in terms of the COVID-19 crisis. Q2'20 should be a bit more interesting, so I'll make sure to up date this again in a few months, when everyone has reported their new positions to the SEC.

I probably won't be posting anything else until Q2'20 Earnings Forecast next month, unless something very interesting happens.