Marshall Wace 13F Portfolio

The biggest buy is IVV, with an estimated $10.14B added, cementing the S&P 500 as the portfolio’s anchor. That’s not closet indexing; it’s a funding choice that lets them own the equity market while they actively rotate the satellite positions around it.

Beyond the index, the capital flow is clear: they want scalable, fee‑rich financials and durable cash‑flow franchises.

• COST: share count up 345.3%, roughly $852.0M added, signaling a full embrace of Costco as a volume‑driven, membership‑moat consumer staple in disguise.
• ABBV: effectively built from scratch (shares up 281,757.9%) into a $752.5M line, a strong statement that large‑cap pharma still offers mispriced pipelines and cash flows.
• JPM and BAC: JP Morgan’s stake grows by 11,481.2% and Bank of America by 581.8%, adding about $641.9M and $607.0M respectively; that’s a coordinated bet on scale banks as beneficiaries of higher-for-longer rates and resilient credit.
• MU and QCOM: Micron (+49.6% shares, +$516.3M) and Qualcomm (+10,156.6% shares, +$454.2M) show that within semis, Marshall Wace is leaning into memory and connectivity, not just GPU headlines.
• AXP and CME: American Express (+1,033.9%) and CME (+178.7%) are being treated as structural payment and volatility tollbooths, extending the financial-infrastructure theme.

Secondary but telling are big add-ons to IBM, TXN, CSCO, NOK, ADP, UPS, PH, KO, MNST, HOOD, and UBER. The pattern is consistent: real-economy rails, services, and brand moats with credible pricing power, bought in size while the market debates how late the cycle is.

If the buys show what Marshall Wace wants to own, the trims show what they think has done its job. The largest dollar reductions are a who’s‑who of AI and semiconductor leaders — not abandoned, but resized from return engines to funding sources.

• NVDA: shares cut by 36.8%, freeing about $1.01B while still keeping a 1.46% portfolio stake; this looks like disciplined profit‑taking in a name up 92.2% versus their average cost.
• SNDK, INTC, AVGO, AMAT: SanDisk (-62.9%), Intel (-65.6%), Broadcom (-52.0%), and Applied Materials (-48.2%) collectively release several billion of estimated capital. They are rotating out of the most crowded, multiple‑rich or fully‑discounted parts of the silicon stack.
• GOOGL, META, MSFT: Alphabet (-30.2%), Meta (-7.9%), and a small trim in Microsoft (-0.9%) show a cooling of pure mega‑cap growth exposure at the margin, especially where gains versus cost are already large.
• LLY: Eli Lilly is cut 41.9%, taking profits in a GLP‑1 poster child while simultaneously scaling up other pharma like ABBV, ABT, JNJ, and UNH.
• CVX and TMUS: Chevron (-39.3%) and T‑Mobile (-10.5%) are bled down, signaling that integrated oil and U.S. wireless are less central to the medium‑term thesis than banks, semis, and diversified healthcare.

Notably, these are trims from strength: gain_vs_avg_buy_pct is comfortably positive across the big tech, semi, and pharma reductions. They’re not capitulating; they’re cashing winning lottery tickets to buy cash machines.

On a sector level, Marshall Wace is pulling the throttle back on pure tech and redeploying into financials, healthcare, and old‑economy infrastructure. Technology falls from an estimated 32.85% to 23.29% of the portfolio, even as they add heavily to selected names like MU, QCOM, IBM, TXN, CSCO, and NOK.

The real climbers are the financials. Finance jumps from 2.48% to 5.38%, driven by the aggressive builds in MS, BAC, JPM, CME, AXP, and HOOD. That’s a big swing for one quarter in a sector whose earnings power tracks rates, market volumes, and consumer health.

Healthcare edges up from 4.42% to 5.21%, but the mix changes: capital is rotating from momentum‑charged LLY into a basket of diversified pharma and managed care (ABBV, ABT, JNJ, UNH, plus MO via its pseudo‑defensive cash yield). Consumer staples climb from 1.06% to 1.61%, led by KO and MNST, complementing the quasi‑staple COST sitting in consumer discretionary.

Industrials (3.03% to 3.58%) and telecommunications (0.85% to 1.14%) rise via ADP, UPS, PH, CSCO, and increased NOK, reinforcing the “picks and shovels” theme in logistics and networks. Energy, interestingly, is roughly flat at 1.97% despite a huge add to XOM offset by a sharp CVX cut — this is position‑level optimization, not a top‑down oil call.

Overlaying all of this is the giant IVV position, lumped into “Unclassified” at 49.96% from 45.9%. Functionally, that is S&P exposure: sector‑balanced market beta underwriting an increasingly barbell‑shaped set of active tilts.

Taken together, the 2026 Q2 13F says Marshall Wace is less interested in squeezing the last dollar out of AI leaders and more interested in owning the durable economics that will persist once the hype fades. They are using the S&P 500 as a chassis and bolting on high‑conviction overweights in banks, semis, telecom gear, logistics, and big‑cap healthcare.

The internal rotation within technology is particularly telling. Capital is flowing from GPU‑centric narratives (NVDA, AVGO, AMAT, INTC) toward memory (MU), connectivity (QCOM, NOK, CSCO), and legacy tech with cash‑return angles (IBM, TXN, CRM). That reads as a belief that the AI capex cycle is real, but that the best risk‑reward now lies in the broader supply chain and infrastructure, not just the marquee chip names.

At the same time, the aggressive rebuild in JPM, BAC, AXP, CME, and MS suggests they see cyclical fear in financials as overdone. If credit stays contained and rate cuts are measured, these names can compound on volumes, spreads, and fee income without needing heroic growth assumptions.

The modest but deliberate increase in healthcare and staples, plus upgrades to COST, KO, MNST, and defensive pharmas, rounds out the picture: they’re preparing for late‑cycle chop with businesses that can raise prices and keep customers. This is a portfolio re‑engineered for resilience — willing to sacrifice some upside beta for a steadier stream of earnings power tied to real economic activity.

For investors tracking Marshall Wace, the takeaway isn’t a hot stock tip; it’s the template. When a high‑octane stock‑picker who has run at 22.65% annualized over three years starts swapping pure growth for market beta plus cash‑flow moats, it’s a clear signal about where they think the easy money has already been made.