Harvard ditched its Apple stock in favor of Facebook

Harvard Management Company (HMC,) the investment arm of the famous university, has sold all of its stock in Apple and instead picked up hundreds of millions of dollars in Facebook stock. Microsoft has also been pushed to the sidelines, too.

In its second quarter filings HMC reported that it held a little more than $100 million in Apple stock, according to The Crimson (via Cult of Mac.) Facebook stocks sat at around $32 million. But by the third quarter it was all change, with Apple stock sold and Facebook holdings increased to more than $400 million. The university also got all the way out of Microsoft as well.

As a whole, it seems HMC is doing rather well for itself, too. So well that at the end of the third quarter it had around $1.07 billion in investments.

HMC — the University's investment arm, which manages its endowment — reported roughly $1.07 billion in securities investments in its third-quarter filings, more than double the roughly $405 million it reported in securities at the end of the second quarter in August.

The move to Facebook stock at a time where the social network is almost constantly in the news for the wrong reasons is interesting. Despite that fact Facebook stock is higher now than it was at the start of the year, although it's gone through its fair share of peaks and troughs. The sale of every last Apple share is also notable for obvious reasons, especially given the stock's relative stability compared to Facebook.