Twitter Spikes As Musk Gains Stake

On Monday morning, investors woke up to the news that Tesla founder Elon Musk had acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter (TWTR), not long after criticizing its approach to free speech. He’s now the company’s largest shareholder. The social media company’s stock shot up nearly 30% by midday trading on the news.  

Twitter is a holding in 184 different ETFs, with 70.7 million shares, worth roughly $2 billion, allocated across them.  

The fund with the highest allocation to TWTR is the Invesco Dynamic Media ETF (PBS), with a 5.8% weighting to the stock, followed by the Jacob Forward ETF (JFWD), with a 5.14% weighting. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Communication Services ETF (EWCO) has the third-highest weighting, with an allocation of 4.68%.  

None of those ETFs is that big, but the $242.6 million Global X Social Media ETF (SOCL) and the $11.9 billion Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLC) have weightings to the stock of 4.55% and 2.89%, respectively.  

In fact, XLC holds more shares of TWTR than any other fund, with 9.07 million shares, or nearly 13% of the total shares held by all U.S.-listed ETFs. The $420.5 billion SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) comes in second, with 8.61 million shares. The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) hold 6.98 million and 6.08 million shares, respectively.  

Before Monday’s spike, the fund that had the most positive results of ETFs holding TWTR stock was the Amplify Thematic All-Stars ETF (MVPS), which is up 7.05% during the 30-day period ended April 1.  

TWTR likely didn’t have too much to do with that bump though, as it was only 0.42% of the portfolio. However, it likely contributed significantly more to JFWD’s 6.62% gain during the same period. The ProShares UltraPro S&P500 (UPRO) is up 6.4%.  

Cap-weighted, plain vanilla ETFs represent 50 of the 184 ETFs holding TWTR, while 31 actively managed ETFs also hold the stock. The next-largest group is fundamental ETFs, with 19 funds holding TWTR shares.  

Twitter closed the day out with a gain of 27%. It’s unclear if that gain will hold given the mixed feelings in the markets about Tesla’s CEO, who is also a popular figure on Twitter’s platform. 

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]