Bridgewater and Appaloosa Both Roughly Doubled Their Amazon Stakes Last Quarter. Most of Their Peers Were Cutting.

By Kresmion Research, June 21, 2026

Ray Dalio's Bridgewater and David Tepper's Appaloosa each roughly doubled their Amazon stakes in the first quarter, both reporting the same 208 dollar mark. Most of their large peers were cutting in the same three months. Read across funds rather than one filing at a time, the quarter shows two of the most closely watched managers on Wall Street independently building large Amazon positions at the same price, against a crowd that was mostly stepping back.

This is not a recommendation, and it is not a forecast. It is a description of where the most followed institutional money moved last quarter, what it paid, and where the stock has gone since.

Key takeaways

Two marquee funds doubled in

In their quarterly 13F filings, which disclose what large institutions held at the end of a quarter, two names stand out for the size and conviction of their Amazon buying in the first quarter of 2026.

Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates more than doubled its Amazon position, lifting it about 125 percent from 1,948,254 shares to 4,388,711 shares, a stake Kresmion values near 914 million dollars at the quarter end mark. David Tepper's Appaloosa nearly doubled its holding, raising it about 98 percent from 2,179,391 shares to 4,320,000 shares, worth about 900 million dollars. As CNBC reported, that move made Amazon Appaloosa's single largest disclosed holding, more than 15 percent of the firm's reported portfolio.

Together those two additions come to about 1.81 billion dollars of Amazon common stock, both reported at the same March 31 mark. A separate firm, D. E. Shaw, expanded an Amazon call option position by about 53 percent, but that is an options bet rather than a common stock purchase, so it sits outside the 1.81 billion dollar figure.

The price they reported, and where it is now

Every filer in Kresmion's data, whether adding or reducing, reported Amazon at exactly 208.27 dollars a share. That is not a coincidence, and it is not coordination. It is the closing price of Amazon on March 31, 2026, the last trading day of the quarter, the standard reference price all institutions use to value a position in a 13F. Independent price history from Digrin confirms the 208.27 dollar March close. The fact that every filer carries the identical mark is also a useful data integrity check: it tells us the shares and dollar values reconcile cleanly, with none of the price errors that can corrupt a single filing.

Since that quarter end mark, Amazon has risen. The stock last closed at 244.39 dollars on June 18, according to stockanalysis.com, about 17 percent above the 208.27 dollar mark. United States equity markets were closed on June 19 for the Juneteenth holiday, so June 18 is the most recent close. Amazon went on to reach roughly 275 dollars in early May before easing back to the current level, so it now sits well above the funds' quarter end mark but below that peak. The managers who built into the stock at the end of the quarter are, for the moment, looking at a gain on that mark, with the standard caveat that a 13F shows a position and its quarter end value, not the price a fund actually paid.

The quarter was not unanimous

Concentration is the story, not consensus. In the same quarter that Bridgewater and Appaloosa were building, most other large funds in Kresmion's coverage were doing the opposite. Coatue Management reduced its Amazon position about 20 percent, to roughly 1.65 billion dollars. Viking Global cut its stake by about 62 percent, an exit level reduction. Millennium and Third Point each trimmed by roughly 10 to 12 percent. Soros Fund Management is a useful case in point: it ended the quarter with about 405 million dollars of Amazon common stock, but that was a reduction from the prior quarter, from about 2.36 million shares to about 1.95 million, and it separately closed an Amazon call option, so on every axis Soros was a seller, not a buyer. Tiger Global held its large position roughly flat.

So the accurate reading is not that institutions piled into Amazon last quarter. It is that two high profile, conviction driven managers added aggressively while most of their peers stepped back. When a global macro shop and a distressed and event driven specialist as different as Bridgewater and Appaloosa both arrive at the same name at the same price in the same quarter, against a tape of peers reducing, the agreement between them is the signal worth noting, precisely because it was not the whole market doing it.

How current is this, and how Kresmion reads it

A 13F is a snapshot as of the last day of a quarter, and it can be filed up to 45 days later. These positions are dated March 31, so they are more than ten weeks old. The reported dollar values are quarter end marks, not the prices the funds actually paid to build the stakes over time. A 13F tells you where money was, not where it is going.

What a cross fund view adds is the pattern that no single filing shows. Reading one 13F tells you Appaloosa likes Amazon. Reading the whole set at once tells you that two of the most followed managers independently made the same large bet at the same price in the same quarter, that the stock has since moved about 17 percent in their favor, and that a larger group of their peers sold into the same period. It also catches the traps: a fund that closes a call and trims its common stock can look like a buyer in a careless read, when it was the opposite. That separation, of common stock from options and of genuine accumulation from data artifacts, is the kind of work Kresmion's engine is built to do.

This note is part of Kresmion's daily Research Notes. Kresmion's Amazon research page tracks the filings behind these positions, and the Kresmion learning library collects the methodology primers.

Frequently asked questions

What is a 13F, and how recent is this data?

A 13F is a quarterly filing that institutional investment managers with more than 100 million dollars in United States equities must submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission, disclosing their long stock and options positions as of the last day of the quarter. The filing can be submitted up to 45 days after the quarter ends. The positions described here are dated March 31, 2026, so they are more than ten weeks old by the time they are read.

Does the identical 208.27 dollar mark mean the funds coordinated?

No. Every institution values its holdings in a 13F at the closing price on the last trading day of the quarter. Amazon closed at 208.27 dollars on March 31, 2026, so every filer, whether buying or reducing, reports that same price. The uniform mark is a sign that the data reconciles cleanly across funds, not a sign of coordinated trading.

Why focus on two funds when most of the others were reducing Amazon?

Because the agreement between those two is the differentiated point. In the same quarter, Coatue reduced its Amazon stake about 20 percent, Viking Global cut about 62 percent, Millennium and Third Point trimmed, and Soros reduced its common position as well. The fact that Bridgewater and Appaloosa each roughly doubled their stakes while most peers stepped back is what makes the agreement between them notable. It was a divided quarter, not a one way move.

Is this a trade recommendation?

No. Kresmion surfaces what large institutions disclosed and what the stock has done since, drawn from public filings and price history. It does not advise any action on Amazon or any other security. A 13F is backward looking, the data is more than ten weeks old, and past positioning is not a forecast.