(Bloomberg) --
The Swiss National Bank’s holdings of U.S. equities hit a record $97.5 billion at the end of last year, helped by surging markets.
As of the end of 2019, the holdings were up 3.6% from three months earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published on Thursday. The S&P 500 Index gained 8.5% in the fourth quarter.
A spokeswoman for the SNB declined to comment.
With the franc at close to a three-year high against the euro and Switzerland back on the U.S. Treasury’s watch list for FX manipulators, the SNB’s use of foreign-exchange interventions to stem appreciation pressure on its currency are once again coming into focus.
The SNB’s mountain of foreign exchange holdings -- 770.8 billion francs ($791 billion) at the end of 2019 -- is a consequence of its interventions, with 20% of that pile invested in stocks. However, the U.S. regulatory filing is one of the few pieces of information available about which companies the central bank actually has a stake in.
SNB officials have stressed that they don’t engage in stock picking and invest according to the criteria of security, liquidity and return.
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