National Bank of Canada Q4 2025: 110 New Positions Without Losing the Canadian Core

National Bank of Canada /FI/ did not turn into a one-theme momentum book in 2025Q4. The filing grew to $109.99B from $100.44B in 2025Q3, but the more revealing signal is how that growth was built: 110 new positions, 110 exits, heavier exposure to U.S. growth leaders such as Meta, Tesla, and Alphabet, and a top book that still kept Canadian banking franchises like Royal Bank of Canada and TD near the center.

This is why the quarter matters. Plenty of bank-owned filers read like static balance-sheet spillover, but National Bank of Canada's latest 13F looks more intentional. The top line rose almost 10% quarter over quarter, the holdings count climbed to 5,428 in the full filing, and the disclosed U.S. book shows the institution leaning harder into mega-cap AI and platform names without abandoning the domestic financial core that still defines its identity.

• AUM: $109.99B in 2025Q4 versus $100.44B in 2025Q3.
• Churn: 110 new positions and 110 exits in the comparison set.
• Top holding: Nvidia at $5.02B and 4.80% of the book.
• Core stack: Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, and Royal Bank make up the top five.
• Growth adds: Meta and Tesla both rose 55% by share count.
• Canadian anchor: Royal Bank, TD, Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce all remained meaningful positions.
• Breadth: Top 10 holdings still account for only 30.8% of the reported book.

The Top Book Still Starts With U.S. Mega-Caps

The clearest message in the filing is that National Bank of Canada did not treat U.S. mega-cap exposure as finished business. Nvidia remained the largest line at $5.02B, while Microsoft reached $4.79B after a 20% share increase. Alphabet's Class A line rose 46%, and Meta and Tesla both posted 55% share growth. Those are not tiny tactical nudges. They suggest the bank wanted broader participation across the software, AI-infrastructure, and platform complex rather than a single-chip expression through Nvidia alone.

At the same time, the top book does not look reckless. Apple fell 17% by share count and Amazon slipped 10%, which matters because it shows the quarter was not just an across-the-board chase. The bank appears to have reweighted within the U.S. large-cap stack, trimming mature winners where needed while adding to names where the earnings and AI narratives still offered room for expansion. That distinction matters more than the simple fact that the top 10 is full of familiar symbols.

A Canadian Banking Core Still Shapes the Risk Budget

The differentiator in this 13F is not merely that it owns U.S. winners. It is that those positions sit on top of a distinctly Canadian financial core. Royal Bank of Canada remained a $2.83B position, TD held at $2.41B, and Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, and CIBC all stayed inside the upper tiers of the book. In other words, National Bank of Canada did not use 2025Q4 to abandon home-market exposure. It used the quarter to layer more U.S. growth upside onto a domestic franchise base that still consumes a meaningful share of capital.

That combination helps explain why the filing's concentration profile stays moderate. Even with big technology exposure, the top five represent only 18.7% of the book and the top 10 just 30.8%. For retail readers, that means this is not a closet hedge-fund clone. It is a cross-border institutional allocator using mega-cap tech to drive growth while its Canadian bank holdings continue to stabilize the profile.

The Real Signal Is the Churn

The quarter-over-quarter move in AUM, by itself, could be dismissed as market drift. The churn argues otherwise. The comparison set shows 110 new positions and 110 exits, which is unusually busy for a book whose top weights still look familiar. That suggests active pruning at the edges rather than passive appreciation at the top.

The new-position list reinforces that reading. QQQ entered at $302.5M, Intuitive Surgical at $204.4M, and RTX at $196.5M. Those additions do not all point in the same thematic direction. QQQ is broad U.S. tech beta, Intuitive Surgical extends the quality-growth sleeve, and RTX adds an industrial-defense dimension. The mix looks less like a single macro call and more like an institution widening its menu of liquid high-quality exposures.

On the exit side, the book fully moved out of several positions including Coinbase, Fiserv, and a cluster of options or structured exposures. That matters because it hints that the quarter was not just additive. The bank recycled capital, reduced some narrower or more tactical exposures, and pushed the resulting risk budget toward larger, cleaner positions that fit a cross-border bank-owned allocator.

What Analysts Could Misread Here

The easiest bad read is to call this a Canada-heavy conservative filing because of the domestic bank presence. That misses the fact that Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Broadcom, Amazon, and Tesla collectively dominate the upper deck. The second bad read is the opposite one: to call it a pure AI-growth chase. That ignores the domestic financial ballast and the fact that Apple, Royal Bank, and TD were trimmed rather than blindly expanded. The filing is more balanced than either headline suggests.

There is also a structural point for comparing funds that own the same stock. National Bank of Canada can own Nvidia and Microsoft for reasons that differ from a growth-only manager. In this case, the top names sit inside a broader bank-led, cross-border wealth and institutional allocation framework. That context is what stops a superficial clone-the-top-holdings interpretation from becoming useful analysis.

Why This Quarter Stands Out

National Bank of Canada's 2025Q4 filing stands out because it combines three things that do not always coexist: measurable AUM growth, heavy edge-of-book churn, and a top book that still looks disciplined. The bank added risk where market leadership stayed strongest, but it did so without letting any one stock dominate the portfolio. Nvidia at 4.80% is meaningful, not reckless. Microsoft at 4.59% is conviction, not concentration failure. And the continued size of Royal Bank and TD tells you the bank still wants the home-market balance sheet story in the portfolio.

For 13F Insight readers, the practical takeaway is straightforward. This is a filer worth watching not because it discovered some obscure new idea, but because it shows how a large bank allocator refreshed a $109.99B book while keeping its institutional identity intact. If the next quarter keeps adding to U.S. platform winners while the Canadian banking sleeve shrinks, that would signal a more aggressive tilt. In 2025Q4, the more defensible read is a controlled growth reset, not a wholesale style change.

Questions Investors Are Actually Asking

Why does National Bank of Canada's 2025Q4 filing matter?

Because the filing combined nearly 10% AUM growth with 110 new positions and 110 exits, indicating active reallocation rather than passive market drift.

What were the biggest positions in the quarter?

Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, and Royal Bank of Canada were the top five positions by market value.

Did the bank become more aggressive in U.S. growth?

Yes, especially through larger share counts in Meta, Tesla, Microsoft, and Alphabet, but the domestic Canadian bank sleeve remained important.

Was the portfolio highly concentrated?

No. The top 10 positions represented 30.8% of the book, which is meaningful but still consistent with a diversified institutional allocator.