Masayoshi Son Has 67% of SoftBank's U.S. Stock Portfolio in Intel. He Didn't Buy a Single Share Last Quarter.

SoftBank Group(OTC:SFTBY) disclosed last week that Intel(NASDAQ:INTC) now makes up 67% of its U.S. stock portfolio. That works out to $12.1 billion of the $18.2 billion in U.S.-listed holdings the Japanese conglomerate reported as of June 30 in its latest 13F, the quarterly filing in which big investors disclose their U.S. stock positions.

It's easy to read a weighting like that as conviction. But the filing shows no new conviction at all.

SoftBank held exactly 86,956,522 Intel shares on June 30 -- the identical count it reported on March 31. Masayoshi Son didn't buy a single share last quarter. Intel's stock price did all the work.

For Intel shareholders, the distinction matters. A position that grows because someone keeps buying reflects a judgment about the price being paid. A position that grows because the stock nearly tripled in a quarter tells you only what the stock did.

And what the stock did over the past year is exactly why I remain skeptical of it at today's price.

Image source: Intel.

Nothing changed but the price

SoftBank's stake dates to August 2025, when it agreed to buy $2 billion of Intel stock at $23 per share. "Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry. For more than 50 years, Intel has been a trusted leader in innovation," Son said when the agreement was announced.

At the end of March, that stake was worth $3.8 billion, about a third of SoftBank's disclosed U.S. holdings.

Then Intel's stock took off. Shares ran toward their 52-week high of $142.35, and by June 30 the same 86,956,522 shares were worth $12.1 billion. The rest of the portfolio didn't come close to keeping up -- T-Mobile, at about $1.7 billion, and warehouse-automation company Symbotic, at about $1.8 billion, are the next-largest positions. So Intel's weight swelled to 67%.

In other words, the concentration is arithmetic, not a strategy shift. A 13F reports positions at quarter-end market prices, so a stock that nearly triples can drag its own weight higher even if its owner does nothing.

Already worth $3.7 billion less

Of course, the same arithmetic cuts the other way, too. The filing is a photograph of June 30, and Intel has been repriced since.

Shares closed Tuesday at $96.69, down 6.6% for the day and about 31% below where they ended June. That leaves the same 86,956,522 shares worth about $8.4 billion as of this writing. If SoftBank still holds every share (the next quarterly filing, due in November, will say), the famous 67% is already old math.

Roughly 87 million shares is an enormous position for SoftBank, but it's less than 2% of Intel's shares outstanding. The stake that dominates one investor's portfolio is, from the other side of the trade, a minor line on the shareholder register -- not, I think, a floor under the stock.

The buying that actually happened

Fresh money has come into Intel at recent prices, however. It just wasn't Son's.

Intel itself raised $23 billion this month by selling about 242 million new shares at $95 apiece, in an offering upsized from $15 billion. The proceeds are for general corporate purposes, which the company says may include capital expenditures. That cash strengthens the balance sheet, and it also dilutes existing shareholders. It's a very different thing from an outside investor paying up for the stock.

The better case for Intel is the business. Second-quarter revenue rose 25% year over year to $16.1 billion, the company's fastest growth in more than 15 years, led by a data center and artificial intelligence (AI) segment that grew 59% year over year. Non-GAAP (adjusted) net income has been positive for two straight quarters, reaching $2.2 billion in the most recent one. And GAAP gross margin keeps climbing -- 39.4% in the first quarter, 40.4% in the second, and guidance of 41% for the third. Clearly, the business is improving quickly.

The stock's price, though, may have moved even faster. Even after Tuesday's drop, shares trade at roughly 58 times what Intel is expected to earn on an adjusted basis over the year ahead. That multiple leans on a foundry business that lost $2.1 billion last quarter and still sells nearly all of its output to Intel itself.

In short, the 13F tells you about the year Intel's stock just had, and that year was extraordinary. What the filing doesn't do is add support under the stock near $97. SoftBank isn't adding; the newest shares came from Intel itself, and the valuation still assumes the foundry bet pays off. To me, the stock still looks expensive, even after Tuesday's drop.

Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intel and Symbotic. The Motley Fool recommends T-Mobile US. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.