Billionaire Ken Griffin Thinks Trump Is Making a Mistake. Will He Sell These 3 ETFs?

Citadel Advisors founder Ken Griffin is a big-time Republican supporter. In the leadup to the 2024 election, the billionaire donated $100 million to conservative causes such as the Senate Leadership Fund, making him the fifth-highest individual donor to federal election spending. 

Despite the hedge fund founder’s conservative leanings, when it comes to tariffs, he’s 100% against the Trump administration’s trade war tactics, which include 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. 

“From my vantage point, the bombastic rhetoric, the damage has already been done,” NBC reported Griffin’s comments from the February UBS Financial Services Conference in Florida. “It’s a huge mistake to resort to this form of rhetoric when you’re trying to drive a bargain because … it tears into the minds of CEOs, policymakers that we can’t depend upon America as our trading partner.”

Citadel’s Q4 2024 13F holdings report said the hedge fund had $577.9 billion in assets invested in 17,346 securities. Its holdings include many options bets—too many to count, stocks, ETFs, and even debt. 

There’s an argument to be made that the billionaire will sell down some of the hedge fund’s call positions, taking a more bearish stance. 

If so, here’s where he could start. 

Key Points About This Article:

• Billionaire Ken Griffin’s hedge fund, Citadel Advisors, owns more than 1,791 ETFs.
• Three of the hedge fund’s largest ETF positions also come with significant call and put options. 
• All three could see their call options reduced over the remainder of 2025. 
• Sit back and let dividends do the heavy lifting for a simple, steady path to serious wealth creation over time. Grab a free copy of “2 Legendary High-Yield Dividend Stocks” now.

The Biggest ETF of Them All

As the introduction mentions, Citadel’s holdings include common stock (4,065), ETFs (1,791), call and put options on some of these, and even bonds.

The vital thing to note is that Citadel’s largest and second-largest holdings at the end of December were long calls and puts for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY). 

The SPY puts accounted for 5.97% of the hedge fund’s assets, representing 58.89 million shares of the index ETF, while the SPY calls accounted for 5.73%, representing 56.52 million shares. That’s 2.37 million more puts than calls. 

Institutional investors must only report long calls and puts on their 13F holdings reports. They’re not required to do the same for short calls and puts, so it’s hard to determine the hedge fund’s ultimate strategy with the portfolio allocation.  

However, at face value, Citadel had a slightly bearish opinion of the index and the overall markets at the end of 2024, with a put/call ratio of 1.04. That’s likely to move even more bearish in the quarters ahead. 

As for SPY shares, it holds 1.71 million shares, accounting for 0.17% of the hedge fund’s assets, making it the 58th-largest overall position and the largest ETF holding.

Even More Bearish About Tech

The hedge fund owned puts at the end of December, equivalent to 35.55 million shares of the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ), accounting for 3.14% of Citadel’s portfolio. 

The calls held accounted for 32.04 million shares of QQQ, accounting for 2.84% of the hedge fund’s assets. The QQQ calls and puts were Citadel’s third and sixth-largest holdings. 

The put/call ratio for QQQ is 1.11, which is even more bearish than SPY. Further, the actual shares owned in the ETF, which own the 100 largest non-financial stocks listed on Nasdaq, including all of the Magnificent Seven, was just 151,331, making QQQ the hedge fund’s 912th largest holding and hardly consequential. 

Citadel could be looking to sell some of its QQQ calls in the next few quarters and redeploy into more puts. 

This Industrial ETF Could See Calls Sold

The final ETF that Citadel could increase the sale of calls held in future quarters would be the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:DIA). The ETF tracks the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the oldest continually operating index in the U.S. It comprises 30 of the country’s blue-chip stocks.  

Unlike the SPY and QQQ, the Dow is price-weighted, which means the index has to deal with stock splits and the potential for high-priced stocks accounting for a higher percentage of the overall portfolio despite having a smaller market cap. 

For example, Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) is the top holding in DIA, accounting for 8.03% of its $36.75 billion in net assets. It has a market cap of $174.71 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has a market cap of $2.84 trillion, accounting for 5.59% of the ETF’s net assets.  

DIA is Citadel’s second-largest ETF holding with a 0.09% weighting, ranking it 142nd among the hedge fund’s thousands of securities. 

As for calls and puts, the put/call ratio is very bullish relative to SPY and QQQ, at 0.55. Citadel owns call options equivalent to 1.36 million shares, nearly double the puts held.

Given Griffin’s take on the tariffs, it seems unlikely that the put/call ratio will remain this bullish.

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