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Blue Whale Growth, the investment fund backed by billionaire Peter Hargreaves, has sold its entire stake in Facebook owner Meta over concerns of a global economic slowdown in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Stephen Yiu, manager of the fund, told the Financial Times he decided to “exit” Meta just days after Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports into the US were announced on “liberation day” on April 2.
Yiu said the risk of a global economic slowdown following the tariffs “means Meta’s entire business” in digital advertising could be hit.
“When you have a global business in digital advertising and a global slowdown and economic uncertainty, then it does impact the top line [revenues].”
The Blue Whale Growth fund, which manages £1.1bn, has its biggest holdings in technology stocks, which account for nearly 40 per cent of the portfolio. Meta’s holding represented about 3 per cent.
“We held Meta for four years until January 2022 then sold it, before buying it back in October 2023,” Yiu said.
The fund has also completely sold out of Microsoft due to concerns that it was spending a lot of money on AI, he added. The fund manager started “aggressively” selling Microsoft towards the end of last year, noting that expenditure could soon outweigh its cash generation.
But Yiu said he has been buying US chip designer Nvidia to take advantage of a weaker share price over the past few weeks, boosting the stock’s position from 7 per cent of the overall fund at the end of last year to 10 per cent.
Nvidia’s shares have endured a rocky ride this year. The stock fell after Chinese company DeepSeek developed a low-cost AI model in January and again after April 2, though it rose after Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal import tariffs for everywhere outside China.
Nvidia was also hit this week after it revealed new US controls on American chipmakers’ sales to China, which it warned could dent its earnings by $5.5bn.
“While the [US controls] will pose short-term headwinds, Nvidia remains well-positioned to capture the increasing AI spending in both enterprise and consumer applications,” said Yiu. “The AI race between the US and China will be one of the most-watched developments in the coming years.”
Hargreaves’ family holding in the Blue Whale Growth fund is worth about £200mn. Hargreaves, the co-founder of investment site Hargreaves Lansdown, seeded Blue Whale at launch in 2017.
Individual investors have also been buying some of the largest US technology stocks, dubbed the “Magnificent Seven”, over the past couple of weeks. The group comprises Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla.
One of the UK’s largest retail investment sites, Interactive Investor, recorded its highest-ever trading volumes on April 7, noting that there was more buying than selling among customers. Nvidia and Amazon were among the most-bought equities in the first two weeks of April, along with other large UK stocks such as BP, Rolls-Royce, and Legal & General.
Hargreaves Lansdown noted that, since Trump initially announced the tariffs. its customers had remained net buyers of Magnificent Seven stocks, which account for nearly a third of the S&P 500 by market cap.
AJ Bell, another investment site, noted that more investors had been buying the Polar Capital Technology Trust, whose largest holdings include Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft and Apple, underscoring how tech stocks have become a more popular investment since April 2.
