--- title: "Citigroup predicts the panic of the AI bubble! In Q3, it drastically cut positions in tech giants and heavily shorted the Nasdaq and Nvidia, betting on the rise of AI ASICs" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/265884455.md" description: "Citigroup significantly reduced its holdings in Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon in the third quarter, reflecting concerns about the AI bubble. Citigroup also increased its positions in the Russell 2000 Index ETF and put options on Nvidia and Tesla, indicating skepticism about the sustainability of the AI boom. Global markets have retreated due to the rhetoric surrounding the AI bubble, with investors considering cashing out from overvalued AI-related stocks" datetime: "2025-11-14T09:31:02.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/265884455.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/265884455.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/265884455.md) --- > Supported Languages: [简体中文](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/265884455.md) | [繁體中文](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/265884455.md) # Citigroup predicts the panic of the AI bubble! In Q3, it drastically cut positions in tech giants and heavily shorted the Nasdaq and Nvidia, betting on the rise of AI ASICs According to the disclosure by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Wall Street financial giant Citigroup Inc. submitted its third-quarter U.S. stock holdings report (13F) for the period ending September 30, 2025. Statistics show that Citigroup's total market value of holdings in the third quarter reached approximately $224 billion, compared to about $204 billion in the previous quarter, reflecting a quarter-on-quarter growth of approximately 10%. The data indicates that Citigroup added 826 new stocks to its portfolio in the third quarter and increased its holdings in 1,833 stocks. At the same time, the financial giant reduced its holdings in 3,028 stocks and completely exited 399 stocks. Among these, the top ten holdings accounted for 19.48% of Citigroup's total market value in U.S. stocks, reflecting a relatively high total weight of the top ten holdings. ![1763111737(1).png](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20251114/1763111741105867.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) In the top ten heavily weighted stocks in Citigroup's third quarter, the bank focused on significantly reducing its positions in four major U.S. tech giants: Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. Except for Apple, these tech giants have greatly benefited from the unprecedented AI investment boom since 2023. Meanwhile, Citigroup increased its positions in put options for the small-cap benchmark—Russell 2000 Index ETF, as well as increased its buying of put options for Nvidia and Tesla. Citigroup's significant reduction in AI popular tech stocks as of September 30 aligns with the "AI bubble theory" that has led to the recent global tech stock pullback, highlighting that as tech giants continue to invest heavily in AI computing infrastructure, the monetization path for AI remains very unclear, and the valuations of these hot AI tech stocks are increasingly high. Citigroup's top traders are becoming more skeptical about the sustainability of this AI boom that has lasted for more than two years. As the global stock market has recently continued to pull back from historical highs due to the "AI bubble theory," investors now have ample reasons to cash out or take profits from a significant portion of their gains in high-valued stocks closely associated with AI, such as Nvidia, Micron, SK Hynix, Google, Microsoft, and Advanced Micro Devices. However, it is worth noting that although Citigroup has reduced its positions in tech giants and is bearish on Nvidia and Tesla, it has slightly increased its holdings in AI ASIC leader Broadcom (AVGO.US), indicating that Citigroup's stock traders are optimistic about Broadcom's ASIC computing cluster growth prospects, betting that this computing technology route is expected to continuously eat into Nvidia's AI GPU market share. Specifically, **"AI chip leader" Nvidia (NVDA.US) remains Citigroup's largest holding**, with approximately 33.39 million shares, a total holding market value of about $6.2 billion, accounting for 2.78% of the portfolio, but the number of shares held has significantly decreased by 28.22% compared to the previous quarter. **Russell 2000 Index ETF put options (IWM.US, PUT) rank as Citigroup's second-largest holding**, with approximately 23.99 million shares, a holding market value of about $5.8 billion, accounting for 2.59% of the portfolio, an increase of 12.26% compared to the previous quarter **Tech giant Microsoft (MSFT.US) stock ranks as the third largest holding**, with approximately 9.56 million shares, a market value of about $5 billion, accounting for 2.21% of the portfolio, a decrease of 19.55% from the previous quarter. **Tesla put options (TSLA.US, PUT) rank fourth**, with approximately 10.43 million shares, a market value of about $4.6 billion, accounting for 2.07% of the portfolio, a slight increase of 6.84% from the previous quarter. **Tesla (TSLA.US) stock ranks fifth**, with approximately 9.58 million shares, a market value of about $4.3 billion, accounting for 1.90% of the portfolio, a slight increase of 2.37% from the previous quarter. ![1763111786(1).png](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20251114/1763111790429630.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) **Among the top ten holdings, the stocks ranked 6-10 in Citigroup's positions as of the third quarter are: high-yield corporate bond ETF put options (HYG.US, PUT), Apple (AAPL.US), Broadcom (AVGO.US), Nvidia put options (NVDA.US, PUT), and Amazon (AMZN.US).** Citigroup significantly reduced its positions in Apple and Amazon in the third quarter, with reductions of 33% and 30%, respectively, while slightly increasing its position in Broadcom, making Broadcom Citigroup's eighth largest holding. Additionally, in Citigroup's other important holdings, **Citigroup significantly increased its position in Nasdaq 100 index ETF put options (QQQ.US, PUT) by 81% in the third quarter, making this put option position the eleventh largest holding for Citigroup. Citigroup also significantly reduced its position in Google (GOOGL.US) and slightly reduced its investment position in Facebook's parent company Meta (META.US), which is consistent with the institution's logic of significantly reducing positions in tech giants like Microsoft and Nvidia—Citigroup predicts that the AI bubble panic will lead to a significant correction in the stock prices of these tech giants, which have been the biggest beneficiaries of the AI investment boom since 2023.** ![1763111889(1).png](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20251114/1763111892649016.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) **From the changes in holding proportions, Citigroup's top five buy targets in the third quarter are:** high-yield corporate bond ETF put options (HYG.US, PUT), Nvidia put options (NVDA.US, PUT), Nasdaq 100 index ETF put options (QQQ.US, PUT), Applovin call options (APP.US, CALL), and Tesla put options (TSLA.US, PUT), highlighting that Citigroup has begun to prepare for the "AI bubble panic" in the third quarter Prepare for a significant pullback in tech stocks closely associated with AI, especially by heavily buying put options on Nasdaq and Nvidia. **Citigroup's top five sell targets in the third quarter were:** Nvidia (NVDA.US), Facebook's parent company Meta (META.US), Amazon (AMZN.US), Microsoft (MSFT.US), and Apple (AAPL.US), further highlighting Citigroup's top traders' cautious stance on the expectation that the AI boom will significantly cool down. It has been proven that taking some profits during the high positions of these popular AI tech stocks in the third quarter was the correct operational logic ### Related Stocks - [Citigroup Inc. (C.US)](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/C.US.md) ## Related News & Research - [BREAKINGVIEWS-Citi is a prime candidate to revive big-bank M&A](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281230102.md) - [BaaS and payments are becoming intertwined: Citi's Will Artingstall](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281232825.md) - [Insig AI Plans Growth Drive and Eyes Nasdaq Dual Listing](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281311983.md) - [Meet 'Dobby': The AI agent that could kill the app economy](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281354277.md) - [Realbotix to Deliver 19 AI Humanoid Robots as It Scales Production](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281387250.md)