Billionaire Israel Englander Is Piling Into IVV. Should You Follow?

By Trey Thoelcke Published Mar 13, 8:45AM EDT

Quick Read

iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) holds $750.7B in net assets with a 0.03% expense ratio and has returned 19.14% over the past year and 290.03% over the past decade, with top holdings in Nvidia (7.78%), Apple (6.64%), and Microsoft (5.21%). Bridgewater added 1,739,550 shares in Q3 2025, bringing its total IVV position to 4,049,300 shares valued at over $2.7B.
Institutional investors including Millennium Management and Bridgewater are accumulating IVV positions during a pullback, signaling conviction that current market anxiety is overstated given the quality of underlying S&P 500 constituents and the historically contrarian consumer sentiment reading.

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Billionaire Israel Englander Is Piling Into IVV. Should You Follow? — © Deagreez / Getty Images

In Q4 2025, a wave of institutional investors, including hedge funds linked to Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, accumulated significant positions in IVV, SPY, and QQQ, reinforcing broad conviction in S&P 500 exposure at a moment when many retail investors were growing cautious. The timing is worth examining closely.

The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: IVV | IVV Price Prediction) is about as straightforward as investing gets. It tracks the S&P 500 across all 11 sectors, carries a 0.03% expense ratio, and holds $750.7 billion in net assets. What makes Englander’s move notable isn’t the vehicle, it’s the context in which he chose to add to it.

Buying Into a Pullback

IVV has pulled back meaningfully in 2026. The fund is down 3.04% year-to-date and off 3.76% over the past month, with shares closing at $668.95 on March 12. That’s a notable retreat from recent highs. Against a longer backdrop, though, the fund has returned 19.14% over the past year and 290.03% over the past decade.

The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX)—Wall Street’s fear gauge—tells the same story. The index sits at 26.85 as of March 13, up 31.3% from a month ago, placing it in elevated uncertainty territory. It briefly spiked to 29.49 on March 6 before pulling back. Sophisticated investors often view these windows as entry points, not exit signals.

The Underlying Thesis

Englander’s accumulation (alongside peers like Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater, which added 1,739,550 shares of IVV in Q3 2025, bringing total holdings to 4,049,300 shares valued at over $2.7 billion) points to a shared conviction: that current market anxiety is overstated relative to the underlying quality of S&P 500 constituents.

The fund’s heaviest concentration is in technology. Information Technology represents 33.4% of the portfolio, with Nvidia at 7.78%, Apple at 6.64%, and Microsoft at 5.21% as the top three holdings. These are businesses generating substantial free cash flow with dominant market positions—exactly the kind of quality that institutional investors defend during periods of macro uncertainty.

Consumer sentiment adds a contrarian dimension. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was at 56.4 in January 2026, well below the 80 threshold that signals neutral confidence. Historically, sustained pessimism at these levels has preceded periods of market recovery, not prolonged decline. The yield curve remains supportive: the 10Y-2Y spread stands at 0.51%, positive territory that doesn’t signal imminent recession risk.

Should Retirement Investors Follow?

The honest answer: IVV doesn’t need a billionaire’s endorsement to belong in a retirement portfolio. Its 10-year average annual return of 15.1% and near-zero cost structure make it a legitimate core holding on its own merits.

What Englander’s move does signal is that sophisticated money isn’t fleeing broad U.S. equity exposure during this pullback—it’s adding to it. For a retirement-focused investor with a multi-year horizon, the current combination of a modest drawdown, elevated but declining volatility, and institutional accumulation presents a coherent case for either initiating or reinforcing an IVV position. The thesis isn’t complex: own the best companies in the world, cheaply, and let time do the work.

About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.