This week brought a news story that shocked the audience of one particular news network. Fox News dismissed Tucker Carlson. The popular news anchor had risen to the top of the Fox (NASDAQ:FOX) media empire in recent years. As CNN reports, he held the position of the network’s most popular broadcaster and his departure sent its ratings into a tailspin. FOX stock isn’t fairing much better. While shares are rising today, they fell on the news of Carlson’s departure.
Throughout his tenure at Fox, Carlson generated considerable controversy, often being accused of making racist statements and spreading politically motivated disinformation. News media watchdog Media Matters for America laid out his long history of making factually incorrect statements.
His often offensive on-air commentary led to advertising clients boycotting the network, as happened in 2018. However, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
“Fox has been able to manage those headwinds, in part, by shifting some big advertisers into other parts of the day, say people familiar with the company’s ad business. Also, Fox has turned to what are known as direct-response advertisers—typically, smaller businesses whose ads encourage people to take actions such as calling a toll-free number—to fill the prime-time void. That has helped steady Fox’s ad business, but is still not an ideal situation for the network.”
Now the company is facing an uncertain future, as it looks to move forward without one of its best-known personalities. While FOX stock has struggled since Carlson’s firing, institutional investment is mixed.
Top Investors Betting Big on FOX Stock
Recent data from Whale Wisdom makes it clear that institutional sentiment toward FOX stock has varied over the previous quarter. The number of funds holding it has increased slightly from 500 to 528. However, the number of 13F shares has decreased more than 1.28%, as has percentage ownership. While the number of increased positions has spiked, the number of increased positions is down 8% since Q4 2022. Both closed and reduced positions have also risen, suggesting that bearish sentiment toward FOX stock is growing steadily.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the top institutional investors maintaining large positions in FOX stock.
- BlackRock (NYSE:BLK): 45,744,624 shares. This multinational investment firm increased its FOX stock holdings in Q4 by 1,462,247 shares.
- Dodge & Cox: 40,067,365 shares. This mutual fund company recently decreased its FOX position by 2,426,147 shares.
- Vanguard Group: 33,917,455 shares. The mutual fund leader added 62,029 FOX stock shares during the previous quarter.
- Independent Franchise Partners: 19,026,164 shares. This UK-based firm recently sold off 355,530 shares of FOX.
- State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT): 13,639,896 shares. This financial services firm decreased its FOX stock holdings by 88,669 in Q4.
On the date of publication, Samuel O’Brient did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
