Citigroup sold more than 2.5 million Rivian shares in the second quarter while extending a buying streak in Lucid Motors, an early glimpse of how Wall Street repositioned in the two US EV makers before most institutions have disclosed their updated portfolios.
The bank held 6,127,012 Rivian shares as of June 30, according to a regulatory filing submitted this week, down 29.4% from three months earlier.
The sale of 2,547,235 shares marks Citigroup’s second consecutive quarterly cut and takes the six-month disposal to 3,737,209 shares — 37.9% of the record 9,864,221-share position the firm held at the end of 2025.
The stake now sits at its lowest level since the second quarter of last year, unwinding most of an accumulation that saw the bank more than double its holding in back-to-back quarters through late 2025.
Citigroup sold into strength as Rivian shares gained 15.3% over the quarter, rising from $15.05 to $17.35.
The smaller position left the stake worth $106.3 million at quarter-end, 18.6% below its March 31 value of $130.5 million.
Hedges Held
The bank paired the share sales with a 67.5% cut to its Rivian call options, which fell to contracts referencing 627,500 shares worth $10.9 million.
Put options stayed unchanged at 3,580,000 underlying shares, valued at $62.1 million.
The changes leave downside protection covering the equivalent of 58.4% of the remaining common position, up from 41.3% at the end of March — a shift toward defense from the first quarter, when Citigroup slashed puts by 59.8% while keeping its calls intact.
Contrarian Lucid Bet
The bank took the opposite side on Lucid, buying 457,480 shares of a stock that lost 29.8% over the same three months.
The purchase lifted Citigroup’s holding by 28.5% to 2,063,017 shares, a third straight quarterly increase since the position bottomed at 240,864 split-adjusted shares last September.
The stake has grown 114.6% since the end of 2025, though the falling share price cut its value 9.8% over the quarter to $13.8 million.
Options positioning reinforces the directional tilt.
Citigroup boosted Lucid calls by 252.5% to contracts referencing 698,000 shares while cutting puts 43.8% to 324,560 — leaving bullish contracts outnumbering bearish ones by more than two to one, a reversal from the end of 2025.
Early Filer
Citigroup is among the first major institutions to disclose second-quarter positions.
Most large asset managers and banks have yet to file their Q2 2026 portfolio updates, which are due to the SEC by August 14, 45 days after quarter-end — meaning the moves disclosed so far offer only a partial picture of institutional flows in both stocks.
The bank’s overall 13F reported $302.7 billion in total value, up from $234.5 billion in the first quarter.
Among holders that reported in earlier cycles, Volkswagen overtook Amazon as Rivian’s largest shareholder in May with 209.8 million Class A shares, a 15.9% stake, while Amazon holds approximately 158 million shares.
Lucid remains majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
UBS built a record Lucid position in the first quarter while cutting its Rivian holding to a two-year low, and Norges Bank exited both stocks, along with Tesla, in the same period.
Diverging Fortunes
The gap between the two stocks has widened since the filing period closed.
Rivian fell roughly 9% on July 31 after second-quarter earnings, even as the company raised its full-year delivery outlook to 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles and US sales reached a 2026 high in July, the first full month of R2 deliveries.
Shares closed at $15.57 on Wednesday, down 21.0% this year and within a 52-week range of $11.57 to $22.69.
Lucid dropped a further 16.9% on Wednesday to $6.48 after second-quarter revenue of $405.4 million missed Wall Street estimates and management described an “operational reset” — extending a slide that spanned the suspension of production guidance in May and an 18% US workforce reduction in June, as first reported by EV.
The stock has lost 38.7% in 2026.
Citigroup first invested in Rivian shortly after the EV maker’s November 2021 initial public offering, and has held Lucid since its July 2021 listing through the Churchill Capital Corp IV merger.
