Mercer Global Advisors 13F Portfolio

The biggest dollar adds sit squarely in high-grade bonds and in a more deliberate expression of U.S. equity beta. Mercer pushed AGG up 13.1% and BSV up 11.1%, moving each into the top of the book while both trade slightly below their average buy levels, suggesting they view current yields as attractive entry points rather than a trap.

They also made a statement in IVV, boosting the position by 64.5% and adding about $373.3M, while still adding to VOO and SPY. The message: if they are going to own U.S. large-cap risk, it will increasingly be through a concentrated S&P 500 spine instead of a patchwork of overlapping benchmarks.

Below that index layer, they leaned further into systematic factor exposure that has treated them well. Dimensional vehicles like DFAC, DFUV, DUHP, DFIC, DFIV, DIHP, DFUS and DFCA all saw meaningful share increases, with sizeable embedded gains versus average cost, signaling continued faith in their small/value and profitability tilts rather than a hot-money chase.

On the growth and innovation front, Mercer continued to scale exposure via QQQ and a suite of megacap names. Adds in AMZN, META, AAPL, MSFT, GOOGL, GOOG, NVDA and AVGO, as well as a 52.1% jump in AMD shares, show they are comfortable paying up for cash-generative AI and cloud platforms, provided they sit inside an otherwise rules-driven, ETF-heavy architecture.

The selling side of the ledger is just as revealing. Mercer’s largest trim was VTI, with shares down 26.4%, freeing more than $200M from a total-market wrapper that increasingly duplicates their fortified S&P and mid-cap exposures.

They also chipped away at IWB, SCHX and SCHF, and modestly at IEFA, all of which are broad index products covering terrain already mapped by their enhanced S&P and Dimensional factor ETFs. That pattern says they are done holding three ways to the same beta when one or two will do.

In single stocks, the cuts are surgical rather than thematic capitulations. Intel was reduced by 27.4% despite a very large gain versus cost, and Lam Research and Micron were also nudged lower, indicating they are selectively monetizing legacy or more cyclical chip winners in order to concentrate capital in NVIDIA, AMD and Broadcom.

Even in the ETF toolkit, they showed a willingness to pare back once a tool’s job is done. MTUM was trimmed by 3.3% despite strong performance, suggesting that generic momentum is no longer the preferred vehicle for high-octane growth now that specific AI and megacap positions occupy that role more explicitly.

On the sector chart this still looks like an “unclassified” portfolio, but that label hides a very intentional design: a bond-heavy ballast under a tech-and-U.S.-equity growth engine. The unclassified bucket is almost entirely ETFs and mutual funds, and Mercer spent this quarter raising its fixed-income weights inside that bucket via AGG, BSV, BNDX, MUB, SUB and VTEB.

Technology remains the defining active tilt at roughly the mid-teens of the book. Within that slice, they’re nudging weight away from older, more cyclical chip names (Intel, Micron, Lam) toward structurally advantaged AI and networking platforms like NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, plus cloud and ad-tech giants in the Alphabet complex, Microsoft and Meta.

Outside tech, they are content to own the market rather than make big sector calls. Modest adds to JPM, Exxon, Johnson & Johnson and Tesla preserve diversified exposure to financials, energy, health care and industrial innovation, but these are kept as supporting actors next to the core S&P and factor sleeves.

Internationally, small trims in IEFA and SCHF alongside incremental buys in VEA, DFIC, DFIV, DIHP, AVEM and VWO show a quiet rotation from generic ex-U.S. beta into more value- and profitability-focused international and emerging-markets exposures. The net effect is that non-U.S. remains a minority stake, but one that is increasingly factor-aware rather than benchmark-hugging.

Put together, the moves point to an allocator accepting that the easy part of the post-pandemic equity run is behind us and retooling accordingly. They are trading some upside optionality in broad, redundant beta for more dependable bond carry and a tighter, higher-quality risk budget concentrated in the S&P 500 and proven alpha sleeves.

The upgraded semiconductor and megacap tech exposure, financed by trims in Intel, Lam, Micron, VTI and other overlapping funds, shows they still want to participate in the AI and digitization story — just via names and structures they consider durable rather than fashionable. At the same time, heavier core-bond exposure signals a view that real yields are now worth owning in size, both as a return source and as dry powder if risk assets rerate.

For investors watching Mercer’s 13F trail, the message is not that they are calling a top, but that they see more value in time and quality than in simply owning more of everything. Expect future quarters to look like refinements of this barbell — tweaking the bond stack and AI-heavy tech cluster at the margin — rather than a wholesale style change back toward unconstrained, overlapping beta.