Data: Whale Watch. Options trades not included.
FORTUNE — Any institution with more than $100 million in equities under management was required to file a Form 13f Wednesday telling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission what stocks they bought and sold last quarter, and once again Apple (AAPL) was the No. 1 equity in their portfolios.
Although several news sites — including CNBC, CBS and
USA Today
— ran headlines to the effect that hedge funds were “fleeing” Apple (USA Today‘s verb), the stats don’t quite support them.
To be sure, there was a 5.2% reduction in the number of shares held by the big institutions — to 572 million from 603 million the previous quarter.
But according to Whale Watch, which provides a summary of the 13fs on its website, more big funds added to their Apple holdings in Q1 2013 than reduced them.
From Whale Watch’s report, as of Friday morning:
- Number of funds holding Apple: 1,809
- Number that had Apple as their top holding: 650
- Funds adding to an existing Apple position: 1,009
- Funds reducing their Apple position: 664