Alphabet out of Blackrock MF’S top 10 holding list

MANAGERS OF Blackrock Inc’s largest mutual fund, fearing Trump administration policies could hurt technology companies with hefty foreign revenue streams, have reshuffled their top holdings, and it appears one of the first casualties is Google.

Alphabet Inc has dropped out of the fund’s top-10 holdings list after the $41-billion Blackrock Global Allocation Fund pared back its near-half-billion-dollar stake in the parent of the leading search engine in January.

Last year, Alphabet C-class shares worth about 1 per cent of the fund’s total assets were on its top-10 list. The Global Allocation Fund holds hundreds of stocks and also invests in bonds.

The C-class shares have no voting rights. Alphabet’s A-class shares were not a top-10 holding of the fund. As of January 31, the list still included other tech innovators, such as Apple, Amazon, Uber and Facebook, according to Blackrock’s website.

Global Allocation held about $443 million in Alphabet C-class shares, as of October 31, down from $550 million the prior quarter, according to regulatory filings. The fund has held the stock since October 2015, according to Morningstar Inc.

The latest disclosures do not make clear how much of the Alphabet stake has been sold. The 10th-largest Global Allocation holding, Pfizer Inc, accounted for about 0.58 percent of the fund, which would work out to $237 million, suggesting the Google stake had fallen at least to that level.