The 13F price illusion: 102 stocks the market is misreading
When a fund's holding falls in value, did it sell, or did the price just drop?
We found 102 companies where the standard way of reading a 13F gives the wrong answer, including Nvidia, American Express and Bank of America. In each case the reported value moved one way and the actual share count moved the other.
Actual change in shares held
Computed live from our database when you loaded this page. Nothing here is hand-typed, so nothing here can go stale.
| Ticker | Company | Held | Value change | Share count | The truth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSFT | MICROSOFT CORP | $96.15bn | -$22.38bn | +6% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| AXP | AMERICAN EXPRESS CO | $52.41bn | -$10.79bn | +1.4% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| OXY | OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM CORP | $24.22bn | $8.66bn | -1.5% | Looks bought, actually sold |
| AMAT | APPLIED MATERIALS INC | $21.09bn | $3.86bn | -7.9% | Looks bought, actually sold |
| BAC | BANK OF AMERICA CORP | $36.48bn | -$3.85bn | +2.1% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| SNDK | SANDISK CORP | $6.54bn | $3.32bn | -23.8% | Looks bought, actually sold |
| BKNG | BOOKING HOLDINGS INC | $9.49bn | -$2.74bn | +11.5% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| APP | APPLOVIN CORP-CLASS A | $8.53bn | -$2.7bn | +28.6% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| MCO | MOODY'S CORP | $21.45bn | -$2.47bn | +5% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| SHOP | SHOPIFY INC - CLASS A | $7.05bn | -$2.35bn | +1.8% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| BSX | BOSTON SCIENTIFIC CORP | $6.4bn | -$2.31bn | +11.6% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| ADBE | ADOBE INC | $6.64bn | -$2.15bn | +8.8% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| WDAY | WORKDAY INC-CLASS A | $3.36bn | -$1.94bn | +4.8% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| RDDT | REDDIT INC-CL A | $2.79bn | -$1.88bn | +1.9% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| MELI | MERCADOLIBRE INC | $14.91bn | -$1.65bn | +4.9% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| UNH | UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INC | $18.4bn | -$1.45bn | +13.1% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| CPNG | COUPANG INC | $6.56bn | -$1.42bn | +2.7% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| HUM | HUMANA INC | $4.03bn | -$1.28bn | +12.1% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| ISRG | INTUITIVE SURGICAL INC | $7.81bn | -$1.26bn | +5.8% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| LRCX | LAM RESEARCH CORP | $9.35bn | $1.22bn | -7.8% | Looks bought, actually sold |
| AAPL | APPLE INC | $121bn | -$1.2bn | +6.1% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| DVA | DAVITA INC | $5.14bn | $1.12bn | -5.5% | Looks bought, actually sold |
| NOW | SERVICENOW INC | $4.7bn | -$1.04bn | +19.9% | Looks sold, actually bought |
| COST | COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP | $9.09bn | $1.03bn | -2.4% | Looks bought, actually sold |
| CTSH | COGNIZANT TECH SOLUTIONS-A | $3.64bn | -$0.99bn | +6.5% | Looks sold, actually bought |
Live from our database. 25 rows shown.
- For every company held by our 105 funds, we compared Q4 2025 with Q1 2026 on two measures: total market value reported, and total SHARE COUNT held.
- Value can move because a fund traded, or because the price moved. Share count moves only if somebody actually traded. It cannot lie.
- We list every company where the two measures disagree on direction: value fell while shares rose, or value rose while shares fell.
- Options positions (put and call lines) are excluded throughout. They are notional exposure, not ownership.
- This does not tell you WHY a fund traded. A rising share count can be conviction, an index fund tracking an index, or a market maker hedging.
- 13F filings arrive up to 45 days after quarter end, so all of this is history by the time you read it.
- 13Fs show long US equity positions only. Shorts, bonds, cash and foreign holdings are invisible, so no filing shows a fund's real net exposure.
Free to quote, chart or republish with attribution. Cite as: SteadyShares, The 13F price illusion: 102 stocks the market is misreading, https://steadyshares.com/research/the-13f-price-illusion. If you are a journalist and want the underlying query or a different cut of the data, ask and we will run it.
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Educational information, not financial advice, and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. A late regulatory filing is a paperwork failure and nothing more: we make no allegation of wrongdoing against any person named on this page.