Family offices making bullish bet on stocks, according to CNBC tracker

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Family offices boosted their stock holdings in the second quarter and trimmed their exposure to real estate and private market investments, according to the latest CNBC Family Office Portfolio Tracker.

Single family offices held 37% of their portfolios in stocks in the second quarter, up from 34% in the first quarter, according to the CNBC Portfolio Tracker powered by Addepar, the foundational data and artificial intelligence platform used by financial professionals globally.

The surge in family office stock holdings is the largest in several years and signals their continued bullishness on the AI trade and equities, despite fears of a bubble and highly concentrated market.

“I’d read it as family offices are more comfortable being more highly allocated to public equities,” said Addepar CEO Eric Poirier. “The increase in public equities was the biggest quarter-on-quarter shift that we’ve seen over the over the course of the last three, four years.”

The CNBC Portfolio Tracker provides a real-time look into the portfolios of single family offices, the private investment arms of wealthy families. While most information on family office investments comes from surveys, Addepar’s data reflects the actual portfolios of hundreds of family offices — aggregated and anonymized — representing a total of more than $1.4 trillion in assets.

The rise in stocks in the second quarter was offset by a pullback in private markets and real estate. Family office holdings of private companies, real estate, private equity, venture capital and private credit dropped by 3 percentage points. They also drew down their cash piles by less than 1 percentage point in the quarter, suggesting a push to put more of their money to work.

While the 3 percentage point swing from alts to stocks is substantial for family offices, and challenges the notion that the richest investors prefer exotic alts over retail-friendly stocks, it was largely the result of market fluctuations rather than active buying and selling. The rally in stock markets in the second quarter — with the S&P 500 up about 15% during the quarter — powered their stock gains. The declines in private market valuations, led by troubles in private credit, brought down their allocations to alts.

Yet family offices are letting their stock allocations grow as a share of their portfolio, rather than rebalancing, suggesting a long-term bullish tilt to stocks. Poirer said the AI trade is likely driving much of the interest.

“The AI thematic bet is getting so much action and so much activity, and it’s being expressed in large part in public markets versus private markets,” he said.

The top five most commonly held stocks by family offices in the second quarter were Microsoft, owned by 77% of family offices, followed by Amazon and Alphabet (76%), Apple (70%) and Nvidia (69%).

In private markets, family office allocations to alternatives fell to 46% from 49% in the second quarter, the largest drop in years. Addepar said the decline was mainly driven by private credit funds marking down the values of their assets. Fully 18% of recent vintage private credit funds (vintages 2020 or later) have posted markdowns in net asset values, according to Addepar. That compares with an average of 9% in write-downs for private credit funds with vintages of 2016 or later through the first four years of the lifecycle.

Real estate and venture capital funds also had markdowns, Poirier said.

“We’re not actually seeing changes in inflows or outflows,” Poirier said. “It’s more just where family offices are marking their private holdings.”

Family office holdings of fixed income held steady at 8%, hedge funds remain at 7% and “other alts,” which includes commodities and collectibles, held at 6%. Their largest investment segment after pubic equities was private companies, at 15% of their portfolios.

Looking ahead to the third quarter CNBC Family Office Portfolio Tracker, Poirier said the big themes to watch will be in interest rates and bonds.

“The rates environment, the fixed income world is very dynamic right now,” he said.