The 13Fs are in and our tracked universe is ready to show what direction smart money went in the Q2 2026. Today we get into GOOGL, GOOG, MSFT, META, V, MA, SPGI, NVDA, SPCX, UBER, TSM, AMZN (among others) and highlight actions taken by funds such as Berkshire Hathaway, Pershing Square, Coatue Management and many others.
If you have just 2 minutes - check out the Discussion section below for a quick digest of how backrunner sees the current market situation.
Quick reminder on what we do.
At backrunner.io we track 127 actively filing long-term smart-money investors.
Our research shows that consensus among this group of investors is a strong indicator of stock quality and a great way to understand what smart money is thinking about current market dynamics.
Consensus is defined as multiple funds holding a stock at more than 5% of their respective portfolios.
As of 18 August we have 123 funds filed complete 13Fs, 2 funds had confidential filings, 1 fund did not file, 1 fund filed with intention to later correct it’s filings (we noticed Cantillon does that).
backrunner.io tracker is now in a preliminary state and you can view Q2 results on most of the pages - funds, stocks, consensus insights and latest filing pages.
The report is aimed to provide information on how backrunner views the current consensus, which stocks are in the spot-light and look supported by other smart money investors.
Assets dynamics
The total long-book value of the funds we track is around $1.6T.
If you are wondering how much of that is Berkshire - it’s roughly 18%. Heavyweight, no doubt. But we are most interested in consensus where even the small players holding a stock at high conviction matter.
Q2 was pretty good for our universe adding $117B in value. Last 4 quarters decomposition is below.
Just $6B estimated net of new money deployed which is rather tame. Wall Street is anxious and talk of rich market valuation is still the main topic of discussion (on par with AI circular financing lol).
Consensus is stable
Table below includes all stocks that we count as consensus holdings - stocks with over 5% weight in each of holding funds portfolios.
Q2 is short on surprises here in overall rating, but lets look at the details.
We see couple of themes here developing.
Notable consensus stories
Alphabet
Alphabet (GOOG + GOOGL) can be seen as one of the most dramatic ones. With a total of 15 selling funds across both classes vs just 5 buys in high-conviction holders it has seen the largest inflow through Berkshire increasing it’s holding of GOOGL and GOOG from 5.9% of portfolio to 9.4% and 0.4% to 3.2% respectively. A decisive bet indeed putting it in 3rd place in Berkshire portfolio - higher than Coca-Cola (KO) at 10.9%.
Berkshire is not alone in this. But overwhelming majority is going in the other direction.
See below Mag7 section to put that move into context.
S&P Global
SPGI is quickly becoming a go-to value choice for our funds. In Q2 it saw $2.8B of net inflows. It never materialised in any price movement during Q2 so now we see that it is as good a time as any to look deeper into it.
SPGI is still down 33% from what it was a year back.
A lot of new investments from our universe at high conviction with current tally at 8 - a strong signal of emerging consensus according to our research.
To illustrate this below is all significant portfolio actions on SPGI from our universe.
Veritas, Pershing initiated new positions at <5% of their respective portfolios, and Triple Frond slightly below the threshold. We view SPGI as a strong candidate for deeper research.
Visa and Mastercard
V and MA held steady with no significant changes in consensus holders.
What is more interesting is that both of them added almost $770 million each with almost no selling or trimming action to speak of. 1 new investor and 6 buys vs 1 sell in Visa and 4 buys with 1 sell in Mastercard.
That means that funds that hold V and MA like them very much and keep adding to their positions.
Both V and MA underperformed S&P500 so far, but it is clear that Q2 was a decent run. Our universe members are long-term investors so we expect them sticking to this position going forward.
Another interesting fact about Visa and Mastercard is that they often go as a pair. This duopoly is clearly competing for a market share. So together they provide a bet on payments ecosystem as a whole.
So pick your poison kind of situation. If you don’t want to pick - take both. Something like Bill Ackman did in Q2.
V and MA in Pershing now together a top 4 position.
Mag7
We already touched Alphabet above, but I want also to show just how different the story is for the Mag7.
Most of Mag7 is widely held across backrunner universe.
There is no significant changes at both 5% conviction and any-conviction level with exception of META but we will get to that.
And except for Alphabet everything else looks like it is in a state of pause in terms of bets right now.
But this state of calm is a weird one, so let’s dive deeper in.
If we look into fund by fund actions we see a picture that is very different from calm state.
My personal take is that there is no single story here for every stock in Mag7. What we must remember is that backrunner consensus first and foremost is a story about momentum factor farmed from long-term investors.
So is it profit taking on top of momentum or a conviction building cycle? Lets remove new investors and keep only those that we had in Q1 and Q2 and see how their position average size changed to get the feel on what is going on.
NVDA had a great run past 6 months and it looks like investors are piling in on money inflows. But if we look at our high-conviction subgroup with funds that hold more than 5% of their portfolio have their average position regress from 11.7% of portfolio to 10.6%. That is probably profit taking but not completely bailing on AI hype-train.
Here is the price chart of Mag7 vs SPY YTD.
You can probably tell that MSFT and META don’t fit into profit taking narrative. But that is because there is a different story with them. Both of them seem very lost in the whole AI-boom cycle and are taking a beating in both market and in our high-conviction ownership analysis.
Both of them are bleeding long term investors at alarming pace.
Here is MSFT history of >5% holders.
Most of MSFT holders are there for the long run of 5+ years. They still have profits on their position. But not much head-space left.
And here is META.
That doesn’t look good for them.
Both are in dire need of a coherent plan to justify their hefty AI CAPEX. Until they provide one - the stock will continue feeling the pressure.
Mag7 is a mixed bag right now. There are clear winners like Alphabet. And clear losers like MSFT and META waiting to be relegated to the value territory.
AMZN is holding but with signs of pressure.
We will continue tracking the Mag7 developments going forward since it’s the most widely held basket and together about 18.5% of all long positions by total $ in our universe.
Emerging stories
Space Exploration Technologies Corp
SPCX is a hot new kid on the block and I personally was wondering who from our universe known for restraint and long-term vision will jump on the hype-rocket from the IPO.
The story so far is one of pain, controversy and bold moves like acquiring Cursor and selling datacenter capacity to top AI players.
Yet when we look at most new positions initiated during Q2 - SPCX is a clear leader in both number of funds and pure $ amounts.
So lets dive in and look who our heroes are.
The highest conviction bet comes from Coatue Management’s Philippe Laffont - notorious high-growth and high-risk investor. He fits our universe perfectly with his long-term vision and little respect for traditional value-investing frameworks. A nice counter-balance and I am personally glad it surfaced that way.
The truth about that particular bet is that Laffont had SPCX before IPO as a private equity investment. A brief research on the subject in question is riveting.
Coatue bought into SpaceX during the famous $420 round (Elon in his signature style) in early 2022. After 2 stock-splits each share would roughly amount to $8.4 so with the current price at around $140 we are looking at 16x+ gain in 5 years.
I found a nice short interview of Philippe explaining his investment style and philosophy, worth a watch. He was not hyping the IPO as much as an insider should but spoke long 10 year vision on how SpaceX is a threat to traditional wired and wireless communication providers way before Elon’s August 4th announcement.
This puts this particular bet in perspective as we at backrunner will be watching closely Coatue’s SPCX position in following filings once the early investor lock drops.
Another big bet at 3.1% of portfolio comes from Altimeter Capital. This is a different beast since this one is an IPO bet. Altimeter is ran by Brad Gerstner who is another growth investor in our universe. In interviews he mentioned that this is a long-term commitment so we will see how this plays out in the following quarters.
Outflows
A quick note on net outflows. Nothing too dramatic here.
Despite the outflows TSM still holds a top 10 position in overall consensus rating. Healthy mix of long-term holders and fresh positions.
Momentum still works in TSM’s favour. It is exceptional on fundamentals screen, richly valued but possible very deserved.
ASML, again, despite the outflows gaining high-conviction holders, propelling it into the 5+ territory.
Both TSM and ASML rank highly and according to our research have a strong chance to keep gaining.
Discussion
Q2 2026 consensus picture remains stable for backrunner universe.
But detailed look reveals a mixed signal that averages out the consensus to look calm and collected. Funds rotate their holdings, thin-out their positions and restraining from deploying new capital into richly valued market.
Mag7 is getting segmented with members moving in different directions testing investors confidence.
Below is our view of how consensus momentum looks for stocks discussed in this report.
Strong
GOOG + GOOGL with a bet of confidence from Berkshire and strong market performance recently. Without that bet probably goes into holding ground bucket with AMZN.
V + MA keep getting new investors with a strong recent run but still below S&P500 performance.
SPGI looks like a solid value choice getting new high-conviction investors way below 52wk highs.
Holding ground
AMZN one of the few solid choices in AI hyperscaler race with a decent strategy and relevant experience to back it up. We did not get into AMZN but it is step above MSFT and META in terms of investor confidence. Trending down but holding steady.
NVDA despite market worries still holding it’s high-conviction base. No signs of bailing.
TSM did not gain any new high-conviction holders but overall looks like a strong business on fundamentals.
Stressed
META and MSFT leaking high-conviction investors and not currently loved by markets. Core business seems solid, but AI bet lacking coherent strategy takes a toll.
Emerging
TMO crossed into 5+ conviction holders territory after a choppy ride. Combined with decent fundamentals has a strong chance to keep gaining following.
UBER added 1 high-conviction bet to 6 total. Sitting close to 52wk lows looks like a solid value choice. I wrote about it in June and currently own a position in my personal portfolio.
Conclusion
This wraps up the first report. We plan to continue reporting every quarter from now on.
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If you have any question on the contents of this report, methodology or disagree with anything said - please feel free to jump into comments or find us on X.
Not investment advice. Do your own research. I or backrunner team may have a position in some of the stocks discussed in this report.