Buffett is far from alone in sticking to the investment motto of greed when others are afraid. PIF, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, a Middle Eastern tycoon who went all out to buy US blue-chip stocks during the epidemic, has started the buy-and-buy model again.

According to the latest disclosure documents, the fund increased its holdings of US blue chips by $7.5 billion in the second quarter, invested heavily in technology stocks such as Microsoft Corp, Alphabet Inc-CL C's parent company Alphabet and Amazon.Com Inc, and increased its holdings in Meta Platforms.

Spend a lot of money on building positions: Microsoft Corp, Alphabet Inc-CL C, Amazon.Com Inc

On Tuesday, local time, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released the Saudi Public Investment Fund (Public Investment Fund, PIF) position report for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022 (13F).

Documents show that PIF built positions in Microsoft Corp, Alphabet Inc-CL C's parent company Alphabet, Blackrock, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Amazon.Com Inc and other shares in the second quarter, with a market capitalization of more than $400m.

In the second quarter, PIF also increased its holdings of more than 2.5 million shares of Meta Platforms, 6.1 million shares of payment platform Pay Pal and more than 1.8 million shares of game company Electronic Arts.

PIF's "sweep" is the same as it did during the 2020 epidemic. At the time, the fund had just begun to build its stock portfolio, bottoming out a number of big US blue-chip companies that had been sold off, including Boeing Co, Facebook Inc and Citigroup. A few months later, the share price rebounded and PIF sold most of its shares for cash. Since then, it has established positions in a variety of industries, including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts.

Since July, Amazon.Com Inc's share price has rebounded by nearly 35%, while Microsoft Corp's share price has rebounded by more than 13% and by 12%.

The total market value of positions fell by 6%.

Overall, the market value of its position is still declining.

The total market value of PIF's positions in US stocks reached $40.817 billion in the second quarter of this year, down 6.3 per cent from the previous quarter, according to the documents. In the second quarter, PIF built 17 stocks, increased its holdings by 4 shares, reduced its holdings by only 1 stock, and cleared 1 stock. Among them, the top ten stocks account for 74.01% of the total market value of their positions.

The main reason for the decline in the market value of its position is that the share price of its electric car maker Lucid plummeted after cutting its production target, wiping $8.3 billion off its market capitalization. However, PIF did not adjust its Lucid stock, which remains its largest position, with a market capitalization of more than $17.4 billion.

In addition, many of the stocks held by PIF are members of the S & P 500, which has fallen 20 per cent in the first two quarters of the year due to heightened fears of inflation and recession, and although it has rebounded sharply since July, it is still down 9 per cent from the start of the year.

The other four major PIF stocks are Activision Blizzard, Public Utilities Index ETF-SPDR, Electronic Arts and UBER TECHNOLOGIES INC.

Plans to double assets by 2025

Since the beginning of this year, as oil prices have continued to soar, Saudi Arabia's second-quarter GDP growth has been as high as 11.8 per cent year-on-year, while national oil company Saudi Aramco's second-quarter net income has risen by 90 per cent. As a 4 per cent shareholder in Saudi Aramco, PIF has also benefited greatly.

PIF, which manages $620 billion in assets, has been ambitious and plans to double its assets by 2025.

Saudi Crown Prince Shah Mohammed bin Salman (Mohammedbin Salman), the president, plans to use the fund to develop new industries for Saudi Arabia, wean itself off its dependence on the oil industry and help transform its industry.

Internally, PIF has committed about $40 billion a year to start new industries. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia has announced plans to spend about $1 trillion to build a 120km "zero-carbon linear city" NEOM in Saudi Arabia, partly funded by PIF.

Externally, PIF continues to expand its international investment portfolio. In recent months, the fund has injected about $3 billion into Japanese gaming maker Nintendo, led a $400m investment in carmaker Aston Martin and bought ESL, one of the world's largest organizers of e-sports events, for $1.5 billion.