GQG Partners chief investment officer Rajiv Jain has surprised the market, revealing an aggressive pivot into semiconductor stocks over the past month despite his previous warnings that a long rally in technology companies had created a bubble bigger than the dotcom bust.
Jain, one of the country’s most prominent stock pickers, oversees more than $220 billion in funds at the ASX-listed global equities giant and has emerged as a key critic of the booming artificial intelligence trade over the past year.
Jain’s decision to avoid tech stocks – given his fears that the billions of dollars being poured into AI were unlikely to deliver big returns – in favour of old-world industries has wiped years of market-leading returns and prompted investors to pull $27 billion from GQG funds this year alone.
But disclosures on Friday show GQG has aggressively cut back on its exposure to industries such as utilities and instead invested in technology shares, which had been sold off in June and July amid concerns about slowing spending on artificial intelligence and competition from cheaper rivals in China.
Microsoft shares fell 15 per cent between June 1 and July 29, while Alphabet was off 10 per cent and Amazon slid 13 per cent.
Still, those stocks have soared over the past 12 months, with Alphabet up 68 per cent and Amazon gaining 16 per cent.
GQG’s flagship Global Equity Fund, which oversees $3.1 billion, had no exposure to the sector just months ago, but those companies now make up a third of the entire portfolio. Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia and Apple were all within the fund’s top six holdings at the end of July.
“We sold Nvidia last summer when it was trading at 35 times earnings, and now it’s back at 16 or 17 times. We had the opportunity to upgrade the book based on valuations because a lot of these multiples have come in,” said Jain.
Source: https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/gqg-s-rajiv-jain-stuns-market-by-capitulating-on-anti-tech-bet-20260820-p60q5s