Horizon Kinetics Asset Management LLC Doubles Down on Hard Assets and Market Plumbing

The biggest incremental dollar bet is MIAX, where the stake is up 89.7% to 1.46% of the book. That position is roughly flat versus their average cost, which makes this a clear conviction add, not performance-chasing; they’re leaning into an upstart exchange and options ecosystem as volumes structurally migrate to derivatives.

The same logic shows up across the listed-market complex. ICE and CBOE both saw share-count increases, and CME was only gently trimmed; paired with a larger line in Galaxy Digital, this looks like a systemic bet that trading, hedging, and crypto capital-markets activity remain durable profit pools.

On the hard-assets side, they pressed their advantage in midstream water and royalties:

• WBI (Waterbridge Infrastructure) was boosted 7.4%, reinforcing a toll-like play on Permian water handling.
• PBT (Permian Basin Royalty Trust) and SJT (San Juan Basin Royalty Trust) were both added to, despite SJT being down about 42.6% versus cost.
• MSB (Mesabi Trust) saw a further 3.7% add even while it sits modestly underwater.

Hawaiian Electric is another notable expression of differentiated conviction. Horizon increased HE by 11.6% to 3.48% of the portfolio, leaning into a regulated utility under litigation and political stress, at a roughly 26.1% gain versus cost; this is not a rescue trade, it’s averaging up into a misunderstood, capital-starved monopoly.

Funding sources are clear: Horizon is cashing in a chunk of its long-run winners and walking back lower-conviction real-asset side bets. The Texas Pacific Land trim — a 3.1% cut in shares, freeing an estimated $151.1M — is portfolio risk management, not a thesis reversal; the position still sits at 51.49% and roughly +373.7% versus cost.

The more telling moves are in precious-metals royalties. They cut Wheaton Precious Metals by 29.4%, Franco Nevada by 21.8%, and Royal Gold by 50.3%, all after very large gains, and also shaved smaller royalty names like Triple Flag. That looks like a deliberate decision to take chips off the gold and royalty table and recycle into energy-linked royalties and infrastructure instead.

On the real-estate side, they were much more ruthless. DigitalBridge was slashed by 69.2%, Howard Hughes by 33.0%, and the St. Joe and Brookfield lines were trimmed. Those cuts, paired with a weight decline in the real-estate bucket, read as skepticism about capital-intensive development and data-center REIT models relative to leaner, cash-gushing resource and exchange assets.

Consumer cyclicals have also become cash machines. Horizon trimmed AutoNation and Penske by double digits, and pared positions in travel and leisure names like Royal Caribbean and Live Nation, after large gains. They are clearly less interested in relying on discretionary demand when they can own the royalty check or the trading venue instead.

On the surface the big story is unchanged — this is still an energy-dominated book with 63.69% in hydrocarbons and royalties — but underneath, Horizon is quietly rewiring the mix. The marginal dollar is leaving precious metals and traditional real estate and finding its way into oil & gas royalty streams, midstream infrastructure, regulated utilities, and market-structure incumbents.

Basic materials dropped from 7.8% to 6.3%, almost entirely via trims to gold and royalty names, while energy nudged higher and became more diversified beyond Texas Pacific Land. Additions to Waterbridge, LandBridge, PBT, SJT, and a small uptick in Williams Companies show a preference for fee- and royalty-based exposure over direct E&P risk.

Finance rose from 5.99% to 6.86% as MIAX, ICE, CBOE, and RBA were built up. That is effectively a levered bet on the volume and volatility infrastructure of markets rather than on balance-sheet lenders. Utilities also crept higher, mostly through HE, underscoring the taste for regulated, essential monopolies.

Real estate fell from 2.03% to 1.73%, with the cuts centered in capital-intensive, story-driven names rather than in more defensive operators. Technology, consumer, and health-care weights barely budged, which tells you the real rotation is within their core real-asset and market-structure complex, not a style shift toward growth or defensives.

Taken together, this quarter’s moves say Horizon isn’t backing away from volatility — it’s embracing it, but from the tollbooth side. They want to own the land, the royalties, the pipes, and the exchanges, not the marginal producer or the overbuilt developer.

The aggressive add to MIAX, the larger stake in Hawaiian Electric, and the continued accumulation of out-of-favor trusts like SJT and MSB show a manager willing to average into complexity and headline risk where they see structural cash flows. Conversely, heavy trims to gold royalties and data-center real estate suggest they think the easy money has been made in those stories relative to energy-linked assets.

For observers, the key implication is that Horizon is positioning for a world of scarce, politicized resources and busy capital markets. In that environment, assets with embedded optionality on volume — whether it’s barrels crossing a royalty-bearing tract or contracts clearing an exchange — should throw off growing streams of cash even if top-down growth is mediocre.

None of this guarantees future performance, and 13F data is lagged and partial. But the pattern is internally consistent: Horizon Kinetics is doubling down on finite, hard-to-replicate assets and the financial rails that price them, while taking profits in more crowded hedges and story stocks that have already rerated.