10 Stocks the Best Fund Managers Have Been Selling in a Volatile Market

So far, 2026 has certainly been volatile, with artificial intelligence and growth stocks leading one day and energy and value stocks leading the next. The volatility has had a bright side, though: It’s given investors opportunities to take profits in some stocks and redeploy those profits into undervalued stocks.

Investors who would like to sell some stocks to put money to work elsewhere may be wondering which stocks they might scale back in. As a suggestion, we’re examining which stocks the “smart money” has been selling during the past few months.

Specifically, we looked at the latest portfolios of some of the best fund managers. To isolate the top stock-pickers among current active fund managers, we screened on the following:

• Actively managed funds that land in the large blend, large growth, or large value
  Morningstar Categories
  .
• Funds with at least one share class earning a
  Morningstar Medalist Rating
  of Gold, Silver, or Bronze with 100% analyst coverage.
• Funds that hold 50 stocks or fewer as of their most recently reported portfolios.

In total, 39 separate fund portfolios passed our screen. We then compared the latest portfolios of these funds with their portfolios three months before to determine which stocks these managers have been selling.

10 Stocks That the Best Fund Managers Have Been Selling in a Volatile Market

Here are some of the stocks that top managers have been scaling back during the past few months:

1. John Deere DE
2. Airbnb ABNB
3. Warner Bros. Discovery WBD
4. Intel INTC
5. Phillips 66 PSX
6. ConocoPhillips COP
7. Intuit INTU
8. Arista Networks ANET
9. CoStar Group CSGP
10. Walmart WMT

Don’t take this as a hard-and-fast list of stocks to sell. Why? While some of these stocks look overvalued according to Morningstar, some look fairly valued, or even undervalued, too. And of course, selling stocks can have tax implications, and tax circumstances differ from investor to investor.

Here’s a little bit about each of the stocks the best fund managers have been selling, along with some commentary from the Morningstar analysts who follow the companies. All data is as of May 22, 2026.

John Deere

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 7
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Wide
• Sector
  : Industrials

John Deere tops the list of stocks that the best fund managers are selling and is the only industrials name on the list. Morningstar thinks this wide-moat stock is 12% undervalued.

Deere is one of the world’s leading providers of machinery serving agricultural, construction, and other industrial end markets. With significant exposure to and dominant share in agricultural end markets (as much as two-thirds of operating profits), the company is widely regarded as a quintessential “cyclical.” Since 2012, the company has increasingly invested in “connecting” its machines to GPS and other technology architecture to boost their performance in the field. In 2020, management launched its “Smart Industrial” operating model, which included a reorganization of its reporting segments to focus on customer production processes and where Deere can enhance efficiency via technological innovation. In 2022, the company introduced its LEAP ambitions, a set of four-year plans to incorporate more connectedness in its installed base as well as enhancing sustainability initiatives via increased use of recycled materials and reducing its carbon footprint. Specifically, management claims that these ambitions include a $150 billion incremental increase to Deere’s total addressable market. The company is well on its way to achieving its 2030 objectives, which include 10% revenue CAGR and 20% midcycle operating margins.

Management teams at cyclical companies such as Deere try to reduce earnings volatility during downturns. The “Smart Industrial” strategy resulted in meaningful structural costs taken out of the company’s manufacturing footprint as well as further cost efficiencies from labor and facilities utilization. This has improved returns versus prior cycles. Perhaps more important is the ongoing push to add more high-margin technology features to products, both new and retrofit. Combined, this has resulted in nearly 700 basis points of margin expansion versus prior cycles, with management now targeting a midcycle margin of 20%. Deere only began offering “connected” devices in 2012, and with average useful lives of 15-20 years for most types of equipment it offers, the opportunity to retrofit more machines with advanced technology solutions is very clear and supportive of the company’s LEAP ambitions.

Read more about John Deere here.

Airbnb

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 6
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Wide
• Sector
  : Consumer Cyclical

Next on the list of stocks that the top managers have been selling is Airbnb, the only consumer cyclical name on the list. Morningstar thinks this wide-moat stock is 22% undervalued.

We think Airbnb’s global online travel agency position will strengthen over the next decade, driven by a leading alternative accommodation network (the source of its wide moat) of over 5 million hosts and cumulative 2 billion guest arrivals since its start in 2008. We think this network advantage will be supported by investments in artificial intelligence and by expansion into experiences, services, and international accommodation markets over the next several years, as well as its reserve now pay later and insurance product offerings.

Airbnb is prudently investing behind international markets like Brazil, Japan, and India in its core alternative accommodation business, which we expect to drive our forecast for tens of billions in incremental bookings during the next several years. We think Airbnb’s expansion in the experiences and service verticals can produce an additional $10 billion in bookings by 2030 as its communal culture of individual hosts can offer a unique set of things to do for guests in this fragmented market that amounts to hundreds of billions in annual bookings. Further, we see Airbnb’s rental accommodation business as protected from AI threats, as most of its 5 million hosts are individuals with no online presence for AI to index. Instead, AI search will continue to use trusted sources (500 million reviews, customer support) and aggregated networks like Airbnb. We expect Airbnb to continue to invest in leveraging AI across its own platform as well, enhancing the user experience.

Our favorable view of Airbnb’s position is not swayed by competitive and regulatory concerns. Airbnb’s network would require significant time and expense to replicate, and we expect any entry from Google, Amazon, or others would probably deploy a metasearch model (which doesn’t control hotel relationships) versus directly competing against Airbnb’s OTA model (which does control hotel relationships). Meanwhile, the company works with local governments to balance the employment and tourism revenue benefits provided by its platform with concerns about the impact on society (resident quality of life), safety (adhering to codes), and economics (cost of living).

Read more about Airbnb here.

Warner Bros. Discovery

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 2
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : None
• Sector
  : Communication Services

One of four 3-star names on the list, Warner Bros. Discovery is trading near its fair value estimate. This no-moat entertainment company belongs to the mid-value segment of the Morningstar Style Box.

Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to be taken over by Paramount, and we expect the deal to secure regulatory approval and be completed. If the deal falls through, we think Netflix would reenter the fray and look to acquire Warner’s streaming and studios businesses, though at a materially lesser price than the $27.75 it previously offered. Either way, we think Warner is unlikely to stay completely independent. If it did, however, we think streaming and studios have a promising future, while global networks face perpetual decline.

HBO Max is now firmly profitable, it is prepared to launch in additional international markets, and it has the third-largest subscription streaming subscriber base in the US, excluding Amazon, which most subscribers receive as part of their Prime memberships. While we think bundling could weigh on realized pricing, we expect it to attract subscribers. The Warner and HBO studios are matched only by Disney’s, in our view, in terms of the intellectual property and franchises they control and their ability to create premier film and television programming.

The studios give Warner a leg up in creating popular content for its own streaming platform while also making it the industry leader in licensing television shows to third parties and making movies for theatrical release. Franchises in which it has rights also have value beyond the films and programming Warner creates. Video games, theme parks, merchandise, and peers’ desire to exploit those unique opportunities all provide upside opportunities.

Sales from Warner’s linear networks shouldn’t fall off a cliff in the medium term, as they hold significant sports rights along with live news and sports properties for digital media. Over the long term, the heavy reliance on the pay TV bundle is problematic. We don’t believe linear networks will be necessary in the future for licensed entertainment content, which drives much of Warner’s linear programming. We expect the linear networks to have a runway of cash generation, albeit in diminishing amounts, but we’re skeptical these properties’ proprietary content gives them a material foothold in the media industry’s future.

Read more about Warner Bros. Discovery here.

Intel

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 1
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : None
• Sector
  : Technology

Semiconductor company Intel is one of two large-growth names on the list. The stock is having a remarkable 2026, but Morningstar thinks shares are 33% overvalued.

Intel’s best days are behind it as the company faces a much more difficult processor landscape today with AMD, Nvidia, and Apple all in the mix, all while its manufacturing arm is at a competitive disadvantage. Although Intel is unlikely to recapture its former glory, the firm is making the right moves on the road to recovery and has opportunities ahead. We ultimately think the best case for Intel will be solidifying its PC processor, or CPU, business, riding the wave of agentic AI demand for server CPUs, and receiving support from outside investors to get Intel Foundry back on a solid footing.

Intel is still the industry leader in PC and server CPUs. We credit this market dominance to its control of x86, the instruction set for virtually the entire history of the PC. Microsoft Windows was written with x86 processors in mind, which virtually guaranteed that almost all PC hardware would run on x86 processors.

The second competitive advantage for Intel, in our view, was a cost advantage coming from its execution of Moore’s Law, which predicts that transistor density on integrated circuits will double about every two years. This allowed Intel’s best CPUs to have substantial power, cost, and size improvements. Intel then reinvested these windfalls in the next generation of chips, and the cycle continued for decades. This came to an end in recent years, however, as Intel’s manufacturing stumbles allowed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to leapfrog. In turn, Advanced Micro Devices’ partnership with TSMC allowed AMD to come to market with stronger x86 CPU products.

We think Intel’s future will hinge on its ability to develop the Intel 14A manufacturing process within Intel Foundry, to not only build leading-edge processors internally but also, more importantly, attract external chip designers to Foundry. Discussions with Elon Musk on Terafab show some promise. Absent these external customers, Intel no longer has a large enough CPU business to otherwise justify the high fixed costs associated with Foundry.

Read more about Intel here.

Phillips 66

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 2
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Narrow
• Sector
  : Energy

One of two energy stocks on the list, Phillips 66 is trading 11% above its fair value estimate. This oil and gas company lands in the mid-value segment of the style box.

Phillips 66 offers greater diversification than competitors, with its substantial marketing, chemical, and midstream assets. While refining primarily drives near-term earnings, management prioritizes midstream growth.

Refining remains crucial to Phillips 66’s value despite recent underperformance due to poor capture rates, low utilization, and rising costs. Management has implemented improvement initiatives that show progress, but must continue to close performance gaps to reach its $5.50 per barrel target.

Portfolio improvements include converting its San Francisco refinery to renewable fuels and closing the Los Angeles facility in 2025. This should enhance returns by focusing on higher-quality midcontinent and Gulf Coast refineries.

The company has expanded its midstream NGL business through acquisitions, creating an integrated value chain from production to market, which management believes drives value and growth.

Phillips 66’s chemical assets reside in CPChem, a 50/50 Chevron joint venture, with 80% of production capacity in the US and the Middle East, leveraging low-cost feedstocks. Growth will come from Gulf Coast and Qatar projects expected in 2026.

Management is aiming for the nonrefining segments to generate $10 billion in EBITDA by 2027, representing two-thirds of the company’s total.

This strategy has faced challenges from Elliott Management, which argued the integrated model undervalues midstream and chemical businesses and advocates for a breakup—a strategy it successfully implemented at Marathon Petroleum, which subsequently delivered industry-leading returns. However, Elliott only placed two of its nominees on the board, suggesting the current strategy will not change. As such, it falls to management to execute on its plans and close the underperformance gap with peers Valero and Marathon.

Read more about Phillips 66 here.

ConocoPhillips

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 4
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Narrow
• Sector
  : Energy

Next on the list of stocks that the top managers have been selling is ConocoPhillips, the second energy name on the list. Morningstar thinks this large-value stock is fairly valued.

ConocoPhillips has a diversified portfolio of producing assets, enabling it to pursue lucrative international opportunities while maintaining a substantial footprint in the continental United States. We break down its strategy by commodity: oil and gas.

In the US lower 48 states, Conoco is selling down gassy and noncore acreage acquired in the Marathon merger, focusing on oil in prime locations. The Lower 48 accounts for most of its oil production, and Conoco will run a maintenance program to keep activity flat. Oil growth will be driven by long-cycle projects in Alaska and unconventional activity in Canada. In 2026, its Libyan concession was extended to 2050 to boost output.

Conoco’s natural gas strategy differentiates it from its peers. It has secured equity stakes in multiple projects and operates Australia’s AP liquefied natural gas facility. Through the end of the 2020s, the company’s remaining growth projects will come from stakes in Qatar’s North and South fields and its associated LNG facilities, along with Port Arthur LNG on the US Gulf Coast. Volumes purchased from these projects under long-term sales agreements are being directed to downstream regasification infrastructure or remarketed under long-term agreements. By leveraging its Lower 48 natural gas production, it also has a natural hedge against higher natural gas feedstock costs that traditional marketers lack.

Prior to the Iran war, the LNG market was set to enter material oversupply beginning in 2027 and extending into the 2030s. Now, Connoco’s substantial LNG portfolio looks healthy even as Qatar remains offline.

Read more about ConocoPhillips here.

Intuit

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 10
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Narrow
• Sector
  : Technology

One of three 4-star names on the list, Intuit is trading 30% below its fair value estimate. This technology stock is having a tough 2026, with its key TurboTax product underperforming.

Intuit owns an array of small business and tax software products that enjoy dominant market positions in their respective verticals. We think Intuit Enterprise Suite, the company’s entry-level enterprise resource planning platform that combines Mailchimp’s front-office and QuickBooks’ back-office functionalities, is a competitive product supporting Intuit’s expansion among midsize companies. In addition, Intuit’s done-for-you products, offering real-time AI and expert support across QuickBooks, Mailchimp, and TurboTax, should become an effective tool that lifts average revenue per customer.

Unlike large enterprises that require complex information systems with advanced capabilities, small and midsize businesses value the convenience of managing their accounting records, customer information, and payrolls on one platform. We think Intuit’s introduction of IES is a favorable strategic move because it combines QuickBooks’ and Mailchimp’s strengths to reduce overhead for high-growth businesses that otherwise need to manage multiple systems on a daily basis. Meanwhile, single-purpose, small-business-oriented software like QuickBooks delivers limited functionality at a monthly cost of several hundred dollars or less. Multipurpose ERP systems targeting midsize companies like Oracle NetSuite are usually priced at tens of thousands of dollars per month, including initiation costs. We think IES, as an entry-level ERP service with a monthly price of several thousand dollars, could help Intuit capture new growth opportunities by narrowing the gap between the two existing categories on the market.

TurboTax Live is Intuit’s assisted tax-filing experience that connects individual users with tax accountants in real time. Intuit also offers QB Live and Mailchimp Live, matching small businesses with accounting or marketing professionals. We think both mechanisms have become Intuit’s key differentiators from competitive offerings that are incremental to the company’s moat. The high ARPCs of Live products also present attractive upsell opportunities that drive critical top-line growth in mature markets like small business accounting and DIY tax.

Read more about Intuit here.

Arista Networks

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 3
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Wide
• Sector
  : Technology

Computer hardware company Arista Networks is one of two large-growth names on the list of stocks top managers have been selling. Morningstar thinks the stock is 19% undervalued.

We view Arista Networks as the technology leader in high-speed switching for enterprise networking. We expect Arista to maintain its high market share at the highest speeds and for it to augment its share in lower speeds and campus applications where it has historically been less penetrated. In our view, Arista’s software gives it a structural and durable competitive advantage over competitors in winning new customers, both in the cloud and in the enterprise. We believe this software-led approach provides the firm with a wide economic moat.

Arista’s performance at high speeds and its software-led approach set it apart from other networking equipment providers. Its Extensible Operating System gives customers a highly programmable and modular solution that can scale up and down for networks of any size. Arista has forgone the proprietary hardware-plus-software lock-in approach of Cisco in favor of utilizing cutting-edge merchant silicon and focusing on software development, which allows the firm to offer top-tier performance at a competitive price point. We think its software focus has generated significant intangible assets and embeds it deeply with customers.

We believe Arista will see durably high growth from surging spending toward artificial intelligence. AI networks require the highest speeds available to train and infer upon models using many GPU clusters talking to each other. We believe Arista’s strong position in high-speed switching will make it a meaningful beneficiary of AI spending. We forecast AI to become a primary driver for the firm over the next five years.

Arista is looking to expand from its high-speed cloud heritage into the larger (and in our opinion, slightly stickier) enterprise market. Arista first established itself in the most cutting-edge applications for hyperscalers, but we believe its modular software approach will prove attractive for smaller enterprises building out private clouds or on-premises data centers. Finally, we expect Arista to maintain an excellent profit profile, even with a robust research and development budget maintaining its intangible assets and its ability to exact pricing power.

Read more about Arista Networks here.

CoStar Group

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 4
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Narrow
• Sector
  : Real Estate

The only 5-star name on the list, CoStar Group is trading 40% below its fair value estimate. This real estate company lands in the mid-growth segment of the style box.

CoStar Group operates as the premier provider of real estate information, analytics, and online marketplaces globally. Throughout its 39-year history, the highly successful serial acquirer has adeptly integrated major acquisitions, demonstrating an exceptional track record of value creation through transformative purchases such as LoopNet and Apartments.com.

The firm’s flagship commercial real estate data business leverages the industry’s largest research department to continually expand an unmatched proprietary database, delivering mission-critical intelligence to brokers, property owners, lenders, and tenants through its CoStar Suite platform. We believe management recognizes that this business is the cornerstone of its ecosystem and will continue to invest accordingly to maintain its competitive advantage. The rest of the CRE franchise comprises a mix of platform services and marketplaces, highlighted by LoopNet, the most-trafficked global CRE property marketplace. Because of the capital-light and synergistic nature of the rest of the portfolio, we believe management will continue to find additive ways to capture and monetize CRE data, both organically and through acquisition, to create shareholder value.

Within the residential real estate segment, the multifamily business, Apartments.com, is the largest revenue source for the firm. With the highest web traffic in the category, we believe the business still has a long growth runway to penetrate complexes under 200 units, with the 50-200 category standing out as an area where the firm has a “right to win.” The single-family residential business, Homes.com, remains a speculative play in which management has sunk exorbitant capital. It utilizes a subscription model geared toward listing agents, with its sights set on upending industry incumbents. While we remain skeptical of the firm’s ability to reach its EBITDA breakeven target by 2030, and of this endeavor’s ability to generate maintainable economic profit over the next decade, we note that it has been largely funded by excess cash and is not depriving other segments of the opportunity to continue to blossom.

Read more about CoStar Group here.

Walmart

• Number of Best Managers Selling the Stock: 4
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Wide
• Sector
  : Consumer Defensive

Walmart rounds out the list of stocks that the best fund managers have been selling. Morningstar thinks this wide-moat stock is 72% overvalued.

Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, a byproduct of its standing as the low-price leader, generating more than $700 billion in annual sales. The firm doesn’t just have a physical store network but also a digitally enabled ecosystem centered on grocery, fulfillment, advertising, and membership. While its roughly two-thirds share of the superstore and warehouse club market reflects a dominant position that should hold, we posit Walmart’s leading 31% online grocery share and 20% digital penetration underscore the effective conversion of its store scale into digital traction.

The foundation of Walmart’s model is grocery (60% of US sales). This category drives frequent visits and supplier leverage, creating a traffic engine monetized through higher-margin categories like general merchandise, health, and private label. Own brands, over one-fifth of sales, such as Great Value deliver 25%-30% higher gross margins and reinforce profitability despite everyday low pricing. We believe this one-stop shop role encourages shoppers to consolidate trips to Walmart, boosting wallet share across demographics and preserving its cost edge.

We see the second layer of Walmart’s strategy as digital enablement. Its third-party marketplace spans over 420 million stock-keeping units, while Walmart+ membership, estimated at 54 million, deepens loyalty and purchase frequency. Walmart Connect monetizes first-party shopper data through high-margin advertising. Together, Walmart+ and Walmart Connect generate over $8.2 billion in revenue at 70%-80% operating margins; we believe these areas will represent a growing share of profit, compounding at high-single-digit rates.

Despite competition from Amazon, Shein, and Temu, we think Walmart’s scale, data, and supply chain investments offer structural advantages that should support long-term relevance and margin durability. With 4,600 US stores located within 10 miles of 90% of Americans, Walmart’s stores double as a logistics network, reinforcing its omnichannel cost edge. Further, network investments are nearly twice prior levels, but we think the payoff will be seen in faster fulfillment, productivity gains, and incremental share capture.

Read more about Walmart here.

How Do We Determine Which Stocks the Best Managers Are Selling?

To determine which stocks top managers are selling, we compared the latest portfolios of these funds with their portfolios three months before. We then calculated a “sell score” for each stock, which is a weighted average that allows us to make apples-to-apples comparisons of the most-sold stocks. One or two managers making large sales of a stock could lead to the same sell score as many managers selling small amounts of a stock.