Giant Bank Bought Up Apple, Comcast Stock. It Dropped AT&T and Visa.

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A German banking giant made some abrupt changes in its U.S.-traded investments.

Commerzbank

initiated investments in iPhone maker

Apple

(ticker: AAPL) and media and communications giant

Comcast

(CMCSA), and exited positions in

AT&T

(T) and

Visa

(V) in the fourth quarter. The bank disclosed the stock trades in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Commerzbank didn’t respond to a request for comment. It had assets of more than $600 billion as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, and is Germany’s second-largest lender.

The bank bought 157,836 Apple shares in the fourth quarter. It hadn’t owned any at the end of the third. Apple stock rose 34% in 2021, ahead of the 27% rise in the

S&P 500 index. So far in 2022, the shares are down 4% while the index has slipped 7%.

Barron’s wondered in December if Apple’s stock surge would continue into the new year. It did, as Apple became the first publicly traded company to ever reach a market capitalization of $3 trillion. In late January, however, the shares were caught up in volatility, along with other tech stocks and the broader market.

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Comcast has weathered 2022 turbulence better than most of the broader market, slipping only 1.2% so far this year, after last year’s 4% slip. Commerzbank didn’t own any Comcast stock at the end of the third quarter, but bought 1.75 million shares before the year was out.Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in September that scaling up was going to help the company “stream better and aggregate better than anyone else.” But the company warned in December that broadband subscriber growth would come up short. Comcast’s fourth-quarter earnings reported last week beat expectations, but met a muted response from investors.AT&T stock is up 2.5% so far in 2022, after sliding 14% in 2021, setting a multiyear intraday low in December. That month we thought it was “a cheap play on the depressed telecom and media sectors.” AT&T has a decision to make on a potentially large stake in Discovery (DISCA), Barron’s noted earlier this month. Meanwhile, AT&T’s bottom line has been strong; fourth-quarter earnings, reported last week, showed growth in most of the company’s divisions. In addition, AT&T stock is one of Barron’s top stock picks for 2022.

In the fourth quarter, Commerzbank sold all of the 1.7 million AT&T shares it had owned at the end of the third. The bank also liquidated its 301,236 Visa shares in the last quarter of 2021.

Visa stock is also one of our top stock picks for 2022. It slipped 1% in 2021, and so far this year shares of the card giant are up 5.2%. We think the company’s a “juggernaut of the payments business.” When the pandemic finally subsides, Visa could be a big beneficiary. Even so, we note that Visa is feeling the heat from payments startups, digital wallets, and crypto. Fiscal-first-quarter earnings, reported last week, were strong.

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 [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.