Mariner LLC 13F Portfolio

Where Mariner actually moves the needle is telling. This quarter’s biggest adds cluster around three ideas: AI’s plumbing (not just its poster children), resilient U.S. consumption, and deliberate duration risk.

• Micron (MU) is the standout statement: up 81.1% in shares, adding about $489.0M. This is a decisive bet that memory is the next choke point in AI infrastructure, and that Micron’s margin and cycle leverage are underappreciated relative to Nvidia and other front‑page names where Mariner is now a net seller.
• Applied Materials (AMAT) is boosted by 29.4% in shares and roughly $106.8M more capital, extending the same theme: own the equipment enabling fabs rather than only the brands selling accelerators.
• TJX is quietly transformed from a modest to a real conviction consumer name, with shares up 45.4% and about $114.9M added. That looks like a call on off‑price retail as the winner in a choppy consumer environment.
• On the macro side, they’re leaning into bond beta via AGG (+8.1% shares, +$110.5M) and IUSB (+9.5%, +$82.8M). Notably, both sit slightly below cost on a gain basis, implying these are fresh, intentional duration adds, not just mark‑to‑market winners they’re letting run.
• VEA (developed ex‑US) also sees a sizeable dollar add of about $106.9M, and IEFA rises as well, signaling a view that non‑U.S. equities now offer better forward return per unit of risk than simply cranking more U.S. growth exposure.

Funding for these adds comes from trimming the most crowded, most profitable trades. The sells are modest in percentage terms, but concentrated in names where Mariner is deeply in the green and the narrative risk is highest.

• Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet (both share classes) are all gently reduced, even as they show triple‑digit gains versus Mariner’s average cost. This is classic risk management: recycle capital from AI megacap winners into cheaper or earlier‑cycle parts of the stack like Micron and Applied Materials, without abandoning the theme.
• QQQ, SPY, and VOO are all cut meaningfully by share count, with QQQ down 12.1% and shedding about $99.0M. That looks like a conscious move away from generic, growth‑heavy index beta toward more curated expressions of the same trends.
• Corning takes the single largest dollar trim, down 19.5% in shares and roughly $177.2M, despite being up nearly 298.5% versus cost. That suggests Mariner sees better upside‑to‑risk in semis and equipment than in more mature telecommunication‑equipment exposure.
• GE Vernova is also clipped hard (‑16.4% shares, about ‑$106.2M), pointing to waning enthusiasm for this specific industrial/energy transition play relative to financials and healthcare, both of which see incremental adds.

Across consumer staples and cyclicals — Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Costco — the cuts are incremental. These look like fine‑tuning around the edges rather than a structural rejection of defensive consumer exposure.

On the surface, sector weights barely budge: technology moves from 38.54% to 39.04%, consumer discretionary inches up, and health care, finance, and energy are almost flat. Underneath, the texture of that tech exposure changes meaningfully.

Within technology, Mariner is reducing the most index‑crowded platforms and pushing weight into semiconductors and equipment: Micron and Applied Materials up sharply, KLAC nudged higher, while Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Lam Research are trimmed. The net effect is a tech book with more exposure to capital‑intensive enablers and slightly less to fully priced software and platform stories.

The “Unclassified” bucket is really their ETF infrastructure — S&P 500 trackers, growth funds, style and size sleeves, and bond ETFs. Here the rotation is from U.S. equity beta (notably QQQ, SPY, VOO, IVW) toward core bonds (AGG, IUSB) and non‑U.S. equities (VEA, IEFA, VWO, IEMG), all while the total unclassified weight drifts marginally down. Industrials shrink (Corning and GE Vernova trims), while health care and banks (JPM, PNC, JNJ, ABBV, LLY, AMGN) quietly gain ground, indicating a preference for cash‑generative, dividend‑capable names alongside the growth complex.

Taken together, Mariner is not exiting the AI and growth trade; it is re‑underwriting it. The book says they still believe secular growth will keep driving returns, but they want those gains to come from memory, equipment, and select software rather than being hostage to the richest megacap multiples.

The sharp increases in Micron and Applied Materials, alongside a meaningful build in TJX, sketch a portfolio built for a world where capex cycles and value‑conscious consumers matter as much as hype cycles. Meanwhile, the bond and ex‑US equity adds show a manager looking past a strong 12.3% quarter to the next drawdown and wanting duration and geographic diversification in place before volatility returns.

If this pattern continues, expect incremental trims to broad growth ETFs and richly valued platform tech, with proceeds funneled into under‑owned parts of the AI supply chain, resilient healthcare, and quality financials. Investors tracking Mariner’s style should read this quarter as a shift from “own the market’s winners” to “own the ecosystem and protect the downside” — still bullish on innovation, but increasingly skeptical of paying any price for it.