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The pension for New York state teachers and educational administrators made a prescient move by selling its entire stake in troubled utility PG&E (ticker: PCG) in the fourth quarter.

New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, which excludes New York City, sold the 811,562 PG&E shares it had held at the end of the third quarter, ending 2018 with none, according to a form it filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. NYSTRS managed to dodge the January plunge in PG&E stock, although shares did crater 48% in the fourth quarter as the market digested the utility’s potential liabilities from a deadly California fire. It is unclear exactly when the pension sold the stock, as regulatory forms only require disclosures of holdings at the end of reporting periods.

PG&E stock has tumbled 46% so far in 2019, as its CEO stepped down and the utility filed for bankruptcy protection.

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The pension declined to comment on its fourth-quarter stock trades.

NYSTRS also cut back on Qualcomm stock (QCOM), which is also slumping in 2019 so far, down 12%. Not all of the pension’s fourth-quarter calls are panning out, however. It also sold Bank of America (BAC), Oracle (ORCL), and General Electric (GE) stock, and all three are up by double-digit percentages, and topping the S&P 500’s 9% advance so far this year.

NYSTRS is indeed a giant—Pensions & Investments magazine noted that it was the seventh-largest U.S. public pension by assets as of Sept. 30, 2017. Also, it is well-run. It had the highest funded ratio—94.2%—among the 10 biggest pensions on that list, meaning NYSTRS’s assets were less than 6% short of covering expected benefits to pay out. By comparison, the magazine put the largest pension, California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, at 27% short.

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We’ve noted that chip maker Qualcomm is seen by at least one analyst as a risky investment. No wonder, as a major overhang remains: the Federal Trade Commission’s patent-licensing suit against the company. The pension sold 349,370 Qualcomm shares in the fourth quarter, cutting its investment to 1.8 million shares.

NYSTRS sold 443,836 GE shares in the fourth quarter to end 2018 with 13.1 million shares. The troubled conglomerate has a lot of moving parts, but the market wasn’t upset that GE didn’t provide guidance with fourth-quarter earnings, or that those earnings didn’t meet expectations. The important thing is that the company’s turnaround appears to be on track.

Bank of America stock is one pick in the sector that one analyst thinks is among “resoundingly cheap” shares. The pension shed 653,705 shares of the bank in the fourth quarter, cutting its investment to 14.5 million shares.

Earlier this month, both Barclays and Morgan Stanley downgraded software giant Oracle. Nonetheless, the stock is up nearly 12% so far this year. NYSTRS sold 573,129 Oracle shares in the fourth quarter to end the year with 4.16 million shares.

Write to Ed Lin at edward.lin@barrons.com and follow @BarronsEdLin.