The Swiss National Bank’s growing stakes in US companies

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The Swiss National Bank owned more shares of Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. in the third quarter, taking its U.S. equity portfolio to $38.95 billion.

Switzerland’s central bank held 10.3 million shares in the iPhone maker on Sept. 30, according to a regulatory filing made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and published on Wednesday. That compares with 9.4 million shares at the end of June, an increase of nearly 10 percent.

The SNB’s stake in Exxon rose by a similar extent, while in Microsoft it registered an increase of just over 9 percent.

The Swiss central bank stands out among its major peers for its equity investments. It held 541 billion francs ($546 billion) in foreign-exchange reserves at the end of September, much of which was accumulated due to interventions to defend the cap of 1.20 per euro on the franc in place for three-and-a-half years until January 2015.

The proportion of equities in the reserves stood at 18 percent at the end September, data published last week showed.

SNB spokeswoman Walter Meier declined to comment on the SEC filing, which is the only detailed publication of the central bank’s equity holdings. According to the SEC data, the SNB held shares in more than 2,500 U.S.-listed companies. The value of the holdings increased from $38.6 billion at the end of the prior quarter. By Catherine Bosley (Bloomberg). Full article.

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