Tepper's $242M Apple Puts: How to Read Options in a 13F

When David Tepper's Appaloosa filed its Q2 2026 13F on August 14, one line got a lot of attention: a new $241.6 million Apple position worth about 3.1% of reported value. Several quick summaries called it a fresh Apple buy. It wasn't. The line is marked PUT, which makes it a bet that Apple goes down, or at least a hedge against that.

A second, smaller line works the same way: puts on 25,000 Berkshire Hathaway shares, about $12.5 million.

Put options are among the most commonly misread entries in any 13F. This post uses Tepper's filing to explain what an options line tells you and what it doesn't.

What Appaloosa Actually Reported

Appaloosa's Q2 filing listed 27 positions with about $7.73 billion in reported value, up from $5.93 billion across 31 positions in Q1. The main moves:

• Top holdings: Amazon (5 million shares, ~$1.19B, 15.4%), Micron (~$1.13B, 14.6%), TSMC (~$788M), Alphabet (~$654M), Uber (~$555M).
• Trims: Micron cut by 41% (690,000 shares sold, leaving 975,000). Alibaba cut by 42%, Whirlpool by 63%, Qualcomm by half.
• Full exits (12): SanDisk, Corning, PDD, JD, the KraneShares China ETF, L3Harris, RTX, Microsoft, Lyft, UnitedHealth and others.
• New long positions: Boeing (800,000 shares, ~$173M), American Airlines (7.5M shares, ~$136M), CoreWeave (~$107M), Broadcom (~$57M), SpaceX (~$38M) and Goodyear (~$10M).
• New puts: Apple (835,000 underlying shares, ~$242M notional) and Berkshire Hathaway (25,000 underlying shares, ~$12.5M notional).

You can compare Appaloosa with the other funds we track on the investors page.

Rule #1: The Dollar Figure Is Not What He Paid

For option positions, the 13F value column shows the market value of the underlying shares, not the premium Appaloosa paid for the contracts. "$242 million in Apple puts" means puts covering 835,000 shares of Apple, which were worth about $242 million on June 30.

The premium itself was probably a small fraction of that. Depending on strike and expiry, Tepper may have committed a few million dollars, not a quarter of a billion. That changes the story. A $242M outright short would be a major conviction call. A few million in premium could be a cheap hedge or a tactical trade.

It also means the headline $7.73 billion slightly overstates Appaloosa's long exposure. About $254 million of it is put notional, which moves the opposite way from the longs.

Rule #2: You Don't Know the Strike, Expiry, or Other Leg

A 13F doesn't show an option's strike price or expiration date. You can't tell whether the Apple puts were deep out of the money and meant as disaster insurance, or at the money and meant as a real directional bet.

You also can't see the rest of the trade. 13Fs don't report short stock positions, cash, credit, futures, or most non-U.S. holdings. The Apple puts could be:

1. A straight bearish bet that Apple's roughly 33% six-month rally had gone too far.

2. A hedge on his mega-cap tech book. Appaloosa is long Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia. Apple puts are a way to buy protection against a pullback in mega-cap tech without selling the names he likes best.

3. A relative-value pair, such as long Alphabet and Amazon against Apple, betting that AI spending matters more than hardware upgrade cycles.

The filing alone can't tell these apart. That's why careful 13F readers treat options lines as hints about a fund's view, not proof of it.

The Berkshire Puts Tell You Something Too

The Berkshire puts are tiny, about 0.2% of reported value. With Berkshire already lagging the S&P 500 badly in the first half, they're more likely a cheap hedge or volatility trade than a real view on Greg Abel's Berkshire.

Put the Options Next to the Longs

Read as a whole, the filing looks less like "Tepper turns bearish" and more like "Tepper takes profits and moves money around." He:

• Sold into strength in memory. Micron traded around $743 on average in Q2 and was up about 240% year to date. He sold 41% of the position and exited SanDisk entirely, but Micron is still his #2 holding.
• Cleared out China. PDD, JD and KWEB were sold outright, and Alibaba was cut hard. He added to Baidu.
• Bought cyclicals that had been beaten down. Boeing, American Airlines and Goodyear are classic Tepper recovery bets on out-of-favor industrial and travel names.
• Kept the AI infrastructure core. He added to TSMC, Amazon, Meta and Alphabet and opened new positions in CoreWeave and Broadcom.

In that context, the Apple puts look like a hedge on a book that is still heavy in AI and mega-cap tech. They don't look like a vote against the AI trade. To see which other funds hold the same names, try the overlap tool. To see whether institutions overall were buying or selling Apple and Micron last quarter, check institutional flow.

Remember: This Is Already Old

The filing reflects positions as of June 30, nearly 12 weeks ago. Short-dated options may have expired, been rolled, or been closed long before most people read about them. Q3 ends next week, and the next Appaloosa 13F isn't due until mid-November. Treat the Apple puts as a record of how Tepper was hedged in June, not as a live signal. To compare his positioning with other macro-minded managers, see Macro Consensus.

The Takeaway

When you see "PUT" or "CALL" in a 13F, read the dollar figure as underlying exposure, not money spent. Assume you're missing the strike, the expiry, and any offsetting positions. And look at the rest of the portfolio before deciding whether it's a bet or a hedge. Tepper's Apple puts sound dramatic in a headline. In the full filing, they look like a disciplined manager locking in gains and paying for some protection.

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Data sourced from public SEC 13F filings. Educational research only — not investment advice.