Dan Loeb's Third Point: an activist whose reported portfolio shrank by two thirds in one quarter
A hedge fund known for public campaigns against company managers. Five quarters of Third Point's filings show a sharp change in March 2026 that the filing itself does not explain.
Who he is and why people copy him
Dan Loeb founded Third Point in 1995 and became known as an activist: an investor who buys a stake in a company and pushes publicly for changes, with letters to the board and demands for new managers or a sale of part of the business. Campaigns at Yahoo, Sony and Nestle brought him wide attention.
Readers follow his filings to see which situations an event-driven investor finds attractive, and which companies he might push next.
The ideas behind the portfolio
The activist idea is that a company can be worth much more with a better plan, and that a large shareholder can make the plan happen. Loeb looks for businesses with undervalued parts, weak management or capital that is wasted, and for catalysts such as a sale, a spin-off, a change of board or a merger. The return then does not depend only on the market's mood but on a specific event.
Third Point also runs a broad book of long positions in large companies and, at times, hedges with options on the market. The fund's mix of activist and ordinary investments makes its filings mixed too.
What a Form 13F does and does not show
The filing shows US-listed shares and options at quarter-end. It cannot show an activist campaign, a private conversation with a board or a position held in other forms such as swaps and debt. Positions can also be left out of a filing for a period if the manager has asked the SEC for confidential treatment, and a fund's reported value can change when assets are moved between vehicles.
This matters for the article: between December 2025 and March 2026 the reported value of the portfolio fell from $7.27 billion to $2.08 billion, a drop that no market move explains. The filing gives no reason, and we do not know it.
The portfolio over the last five quarters
In June 2025 the reported portfolio was $7.62 billion with 46 positions, led by PG&E (9.5%), Amazon (7.8%), Nvidia (5.8%), Capital One (5.0%) and TSMC (4.3%). It reached $8.99 billion in September, $7.27 billion in December, then $2.08 billion with 31 positions in March 2026 and $4.68 billion with 39 positions in June 2026.
In March 2026 the book was highly concentrated: Amazon was 19.4% and Telephone & Data Systems 13.3%, and the ten largest were 77.8%. By June 2026 it had spread out again: Warner Bros. Discovery (11.4%), Alphabet (9.5%) and Amazon (8.9%) led, and the ten largest were 61.7%.
Ten largest positions at the end of the latest quarter (2026-06-30) and the same names at the start of the period (2025-06-30), as a share of the US-listed stocks in the report (39 positions, $4.7 billion in total).
| Position | 2026-06-30 | 2025-06-30 |
|---|---|---|
| Warner Bros Discovery | 11.4% | — |
| Alphabet | 9.5% | — |
| Amazon | 8.9% | 7.8% |
| CRH | 5.0% | 3.1% |
| Telephone & Data Sys | 5.0% | 3.1% |
| TSMC | 4.7% | 4.3% |
| Live Nation Entertainment In | 4.4% | 3.9% |
| Keysight Technologies | 4.4% | — |
| Somnigroup International | 4.3% | — |
| Block | 4.2% | — |
| Ten largest together | 61.7% | 50.7% |
What changed quarter by quarter
In the quarter to September 2025 Third Point opened a put on the S&P 500 fund (6.5% of the book), a hedge, and a position in Norfolk Southern (5.5%). In the quarter to December the hedge was closed and Chipotle, Constellation Energy and Alibaba were opened. In the quarter to March 2026 PG&E (7.8%), Microsoft (6.1%), Brookfield (3.9%) and Casey's (3.5%) were closed, Amazon grew by 12.5 percentage points and Telephone & Data Systems by 9.6, Nvidia fell by 6.0, and Meta, Alphabet, a gold fund and Hut 8 were opened.
In the quarter to June 2026 Warner Bros. Discovery appeared as a new 11.4% position, together with Keysight (4.4%), Block (4.2%) and Flex (3.6%). Amazon was cut by 10.5 points and Telephone & Data Systems by 8.4, and Alphabet grew by 7.0. Meta, the gold fund and Nvidia were closed. The book turned over a large share in each of the last two quarters.
Changes between consecutive filings. A share is measured as a part of the reported stock portfolio; it can move because of price changes too, so read it together with the text.
| Quarter end | Positions | Opened | Closed | Biggest rise in share | Biggest fall in share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 46 → 41 | SPDR S&P 500 ETF (put) (6.5%), Norfolk Southn (5.5%), Somnigroup International (2.8%) | Corpay (3.0%), Intercontinental Exchange In (2.3%), Rb Global (1.0%) | Microsoft (+3.7 pp) | Capital One Finl (−1.8 pp) |
| 2025-12-31 | 41 → 40 | Chipotle Mexican Grill (2.4%), Constellation Energy (2.3%), Alibaba (1.7%) | SPDR S&P 500 ETF (put) (6.5%), Flutter (3.2%), Mr Cooper (2.2%) | Union Pacific (+3.5 pp) | Norfolk Southn (−1.6 pp) |
| 2026-03-31 | 40 → 31 | Meta Platforms (2.5%), Alphabet (2.4%), SPDR Gold Trust (2.0%) | Pg&e (7.8%), Microsoft (6.1%), Brookfield (3.9%) | Amazon (+12.5 pp) | Nvidia (−6.0 pp) |
| 2026-06-30 | 31 → 39 | Warner Bros Discovery (11.4%), Keysight Technologies (4.4%), Block (4.2%) | Meta Platforms (2.5%), SPDR Gold Trust (2.0%), Nvidia (1.6%) | Alphabet (+7.0 pp) | Amazon (−10.5 pp) |
What to take away, and what to doubt
An activist portfolio is a list of situations, not of opinions about the market, and it can move fast when a situation ends. The most useful skill the filing teaches is to notice what it does not say: a sudden fall of two thirds in reported value is the sort of thing that should make a reader ask questions before drawing conclusions.
As always, the report is late and partial. A position that was part of a campaign may already be sold, and the best moves of an activist are made before any filing is published.
Where it meets our bots
Event-driven investing has no direct counterpart among our bots, which follow price rules and do not look at the situations of single companies. The closest relatives are the sector rotation bot, which reallocates between whole sectors, and the reference bot that buys the whole market and never intervenes. The contrast is the point: an activist changes the company, a bot only changes its own holdings.
All accounts are virtual and public. The guides below explain the rules.
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