2026-Q2 ROYAL BANK OF CANADA 13F Filing: RBC loads up on SPY with +$26.27B in Q2

Royal Bank of Canada's 2026-Q2 13F — positions as of June 30, 2026 — captures an institution aggressively re-anchoring its equity book around index beta and semiconductors. Holding count rose from 7000 to 7109, turnover climbed from 0.208845 to 0.253888, and the HHI concentration measure jumped from 0.008352 to 0.011407. This was a deliberate restructuring of where the bank's market risk sits, not passive drift.

The Index Build-Out: SPY, QQQ and VOO

SPY — add: the defining move of the file. Value went from $17.24B to $43.51B, a gain of +$26.27B, lifting portfolio weight from 3.02% to 6.48%. Nothing else on this page comes close in size.
QQQ — add: value moved from $6.29B to $10.64B, a gain of +$4.35B; weight rose from 1.10% to 1.58%.
VOO — add: value moved from $2.3M to $929,000, a gain of -$1.3M; weight rose from 0.00% to 0.00%.

When a bank loads up on broad-market ETFs in a single quarter while its own national bank names sit in the trim column, the message is direct: management wanted market beta more than single-stock balance-sheet exposure. SPY alone now carries 6.48% of the book versus 3.02% a quarter ago. The HHI rising from 0.008352 to 0.011407 tells the same story from the risk side — fewer effective bets, larger core positions.

Semiconductors and Mega-Cap Tech: Funding the Growth Engine

NVDA — add: value from $17.27B to $20.99B, a gain of +$3.72B; weight from 3.03% to 3.13%. The biggest single-name tech addition outside the ETFs.
AAPL — add: value from $17.28B to $20.00B, a gain of +$2.72B; weight nonetheless slipped from 3.03% to 2.98% as the rest of the book grew faster around it.
GOOGL — add: value from $10.25B to $13.75B, a gain of +$3.50B; weight from 1.80% to 2.05%.
GOOG — add: value from $175,000 to $310,000, a gain of +$135,000; weight from 0.00% to 0.00%.
AMZN — add: value from $9.93B to $12.88B, a gain of +$2.96B; weight from 1.74% to 1.92%.
MU — add: the standout small-position surge — value from $925.3M to $3.92B, a gain of +$2.99B; weight from 0.16% to 0.58%.
AMD — add: value from $1.10B to $3.57B, a gain of +$2.47B; weight from 0.19% to 0.53%.
INTC — add: value from $686.2M to $2.22B, a gain of +$1.53B; weight from 0.12% to 0.33%.
TSM — add: value from $2.13B to $3.06B, a gain of +$932.1M; weight from 0.37% to 0.46%.
LRCX — add: value from $720.4M to $1.71B, a gain of +$986.7M; weight from 0.13% to 0.25%.
AMAT — add: value from $858.4M to $1.84B, a gain of +$978.8M; weight from 0.15% to 0.27%.
KLAC — add: value from $826.8M to $1.77B, a gain of +$940.8M; weight from 0.14% to 0.26%.
CSCO — add: value from $1.69B to $2.60B, a gain of +$916.2M; weight from 0.30% to 0.39%.
PANW — trim, with a critical footnote: shares were trimmed (real selling), but the dollar value rose because the stock price gained more than the trimmed shares were worth — NOT a buy. Value from $1.22B to $2.55B (+$1.34B); weight from 0.21% to 0.38%.

The semiconductor adds are not scattered picks. They span memory (MU), accelerators and CPUs (NVDA, AMD, INTC), foundry capacity (TSM), and the equipment layer feeding all of them (LRCX, AMAT, KLAC). Buying every layer of the stack in the same quarter is a supply-chain thesis, not stock-picking: the fund positioned for volume through the entire chip production cycle. The Information Technology sector weight moving from 0.2157 to 0.2515 confirms where the quarter's capital went.

Trimming the Canadian Bank Core — Real Selling Behind Rising Dollar Values

RY — trim: shares were genuinely cut, yet value rose from $11.82B to $14.84B (+$3.02B); per the filing's own note, shares were trimmed (real selling), but the dollar value rose because the stock price gained more than the trimmed shares were worth — NOT a buy. Weight moved from 2.07% to 2.21%.
TD — trim: identical mechanics — shares were trimmed (real selling), but the dollar value rose because the stock price gained more than the trimmed shares were worth — NOT a buy. Value from $11.11B to $13.41B (+$2.29B); weight from 1.95% to 2.00%.
BMO — trim: shares were trimmed (real selling), but the dollar value rose because the stock price gained more than the trimmed shares were worth — NOT a buy. Value from $7.92B to $9.62B (+$1.70B); weight from 1.39% to 1.43%.
CM — trim: shares were trimmed (real selling), but the dollar value rose because the stock price gained more than the trimmed shares were worth — NOT a buy. Value from $7.04B to $8.17B (+$1.13B); weight from 1.24% to 1.22%.
BNS — trim: shares were trimmed (real selling), but the dollar value rose because the stock price gained more than the trimmed shares were worth — NOT a buy. Value from $6.26B to $7.25B (+$994.9M); weight from 1.10% to 1.08%.

Read the five bank lines together and the conclusion is unambiguous: this is a disciplined harvest of home-market financial strength, executed into strength, to fund the index and semiconductor build-out. Financials easing only from 0.2344 to 0.2312 — modest next to the size of the individual trims — fits that reading. Nobody walks away from a domestic banking franchise this gradually by accident.

Exits, Energy, and the Rest of the Tape

HON — sold out: the entire position was liquidated. $1.52B of Honeywell disappeared from the book; weight collapsed from 0.27% to 0.00%.
TRI4EUR — sold out: the $831.0M position went to zero; weight from 0.15% to 0.00%.
CVX — trim: a clean two-way move, value from $2.88B to $2.01B (-$868.2M) and weight from 0.51% to 0.30%, lining up with the Energy sector weight falling from 0.0969 to 0.0815.
CNQ — add, with the reverse footnote: shares were added (real buying), but the dollar value fell because the stock price dropped more than the added shares were worth — NOT a sell. Value from $6.72B to $5.88B (-$838.9M); weight from 1.18% to 0.88%. RBC bought the dip and the dip kept dipping.
LLY — add: value from $3.92B to $5.32B, a gain of +$1.40B; weight from 0.69% to 0.79%.
C — add: value from $1.07B to $2.25B, a gain of +$1.17B; weight from 0.19% to 0.33%.
CAT — add: value from $1.62B to $2.55B, a gain of +$933.0M; weight from 0.28% to 0.38%.
CNI — add: value from $2.83B to $3.72B, a gain of +$892.0M; weight from 0.50% to 0.55%.

Portfolio-Level Footprint

Information Technology took the biggest sector swing, from 0.2157 to 0.2515; Energy gave back the most ground, from 0.0969 to 0.0815.
Financials barely moved on paper, 0.2344 to 0.2312, masking the active trimming described above.
Everything else drifted lower — Consumer Staples 0.0431 to 0.0389, Health Care 0.0801 to 0.0771, Consumer Discretionary 0.0797 to 0.0777, Materials 0.0433 to 0.0365, Utilities 0.0292 to 0.0262 — while Industrials firmed from 0.0915 to 0.0931, Communication Services held essentially flat at 0.0752 versus 0.0751, and Real Estate sat still at 0.011 against 0.0111.
Momentum tilt rose from 0.008266 to 0.013669 pct pts and the coefficient of variation widened from 7.581263 to 8.950101 — the book got both more concentrated at the core and more dispersed at the tails.

Key Takeaways

The money went to beta and chips: SPY alone absorbed +$26.27B of fresh capital and now weighs 6.48% of the book, while MU, AMD, INTC, TSM, LRCX, AMAT and KLAC were all bought in the same quarter.
The rising dollar values across RY, TD, BMO, CM and BNS are optical illusions — every one was genuinely trimmed (price gains outran the selling; none of them is a buy), consistent with Financials slipping to 0.2312 from 0.2344.
Activity and concentration both jumped: turnover hit 0.253888 versus 0.208845 last quarter, holdings expanded to 7109, and HHI climbed to 0.011407 — an actively rebuilt, more concentrated book heading into H2 2026.