Ed Lin

The country's second-largest public pension has made major changes in its investments.

The California State Teachers' Retirement System bought more Bitcoin investor MicroStrategy and financial-services platform Nu Holdings stock, and slashed positions in retailer Dollar General and energy-drink firm Celsius Holdings in the fourth quarter.

Calstrs, as the pension is known, disclosed the stock trades, among others, in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In response to an emailed request for comment, Calstrs wrote: "We don't have anything to share on those holdings."

The pension added, "Our public equity portfolio uses passive and active strategies. The portfolio's holdings can change for many reasons, including managers rebalancing exposure to desired active or index weights or due to corporate actions, such as a company merger, stock split, name change or similar activity."

Calstrs had assets totaling about $352.9 billion as of Jan. 31, more than any other public pension in the U.S., apart from California Public Employees' Retirement System, known as Calpers.

MicroStrategy stock had a boffo 2024, rocketing 358% compared with a 23% rise in the S&P 500 index. So far in 2025, shares have dropped 12% while the index is up 1.2%.

MicroStrategy's primary business is selling stocks and debt to fund its purchase of Bitcoin, and investors are valuing the cryptocurrency in the company's coffers at a premium. We noted that the company's preferred stock had an attractive 9% yield in early February.

Calstrs bought 32,191 more MicroStrategy shares to lift its investment to 285,785.

The pension bought 1.1 million more Nu Holdings shares to bring its total to 1.4 million.

In October, Barron's suggested that if Nu Holdings stock were good enough for Warren Buffett and Cathie Wood to own, then investors should consider buying it, as well.

The Cayman Islands-based company owns Nubank, which Barron's Teresa Rivas has described as "Latin America's largest financial-technology bank focusing on the large population of underserved consumers, known as the underbanked, in Brazil, as well as the unbanked in Mexico and, more recently, Colombia."

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed in mid-February that it halved its Nu Holdings stake to 40.2 million shares.

Nu Holdings stock rose 24% in 2024; so far in 2025, shares are up 3.8%.

Dollar General stock dove 44% in 2024, and so far this year shares are down 2.2%.

A string of earnings disappointments and cautious outlooks had shares reeling last year. Barron's is bullish on the stock, however. Sentiment in the retailer is so low, "[i]t might not take much improvement to get investors excited again about it," Andrew Bary noted in January.

Calstrs sold 69,336 Dollar General shares to cut its investment to 281,385.

The pension sold 113,544 Celsius Holdings shares to lower its stake to 143,579.

Celsius stock slipped last year after PepsiCo, its major distribution partner, reduced inventory of the energy drink in the first and second quarters. Disappointing results for the September-ended quarter, reported in November, pummeled Celsius stock further.

Barron's still bullish on the stock, however. "As Pepsi's supply-chain adjustment settles down, Celsius will likely see a recovery in revenue," Evie Liu wrote in January.

Celsius stock dropped 52% in 2024, and so far in 2025 shares are down 2.5%.

Inside Scoop is a regular Barron's feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members -- so-called insiders -- as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.

Write to Ed Lin at ed.lin@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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March 02, 2025 03:00 ET (08:00 GMT)

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