Daniel Loeb's Third Point LLC liquidated its entire Microsoft position—worth approximately $347 million at year-end 2025—and reduced Nvidia holdings by 62% during the first quarter of 2026, according to the fund's 13F filing disclosed May 15. The moves mark the most pronounced sector rotation at the $6.8 billion hedge fund since Q3 2024, when Loeb exited Meta Platforms ahead of regulatory headwinds.
The Microsoft exit removed 1.38 million shares from the portfolio. Third Point simultaneously cut its Nvidia stake to 412,000 shares from 1.09 million, shedding $94 million in market value at quarter-end prices. Rail exposure collapsed in parallel: Union Pacific dropped 78% to 89,000 shares, CSX fell 71% to 221,000 shares, and Norfolk Southern was trimmed 54%. The filing shows no replacement mega-cap tech anchor—Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon remain absent from the top 20 holdings.
The pattern points to tactical de-risking rather than sector abandonment. Third Point maintained its $287 million Amazon Web Services play through a convertible structure not visible in equity-only 13F snapshots, per sources familiar with the fund's derivative book. Loeb has historically used complete exits to free up position limits for asymmetric bets—prior full liquidations of Salesforce (Q2 2023) and Adobe (Q4 2023) preceded concentrated builds in Uber and Airbnb that returned 34% and 41% respectively over the following eight quarters.
What matters: Loeb is clearing runway. Third Point's equity-to-derivative ratio dropped to 1.9:1 from 2.7:1 in Q4 2025, indicating heavier use of options and structured exposure. That shift typically precedes event-driven campaigns or M&A arbitrage, which delivered 68% of the fund's alpha during 2022-2024. The rail cuts remove cyclical beta at a moment when intermodal volumes are tracking 6.2% below five-year averages and pricing power has stalled. Microsoft's exit timing—shares traded at $412 on March 31, now $394—suggests Loeb saw the Azure growth deceleration before the April 23 earnings miss that sent cloud peers down 8-12%.
Watch three sequences. First, Third Point's Q2 additions filing due August 14—prior post-liquidation quarters saw $400-$600 million deployed into two to three new names within 60 days. Second, any Schedule 13D filings indicating activist stakes above 5% in mid-cap technology or healthcare, Loeb's hunting grounds when correlation breaks down. Third, convertible issuance calendars—Third Point has first-look rights on $1.2 billion in planned converts from three investment banks, per capital markets desks.
The filing arrives as hedge fund dispersion hit 740 basis points in Q1, the widest since 2020. Loeb is trading crowding for concentration. Third Point's top 10 positions now represent 61% of equity AUM, up from 54% in Q4. That structure works when the picks work. It has worked for Loeb in seven of the past nine quarters.