What Stocks do Billionaires Buy?

• Billionaire investors are busy scooping up bargains in the current bear market.
• Billionaire money managers have used the sizable market downturn to buy these seven stocks at a perceived discount.

Although you probably don’t need the reminder, it’s been a rough year on Wall Street. The benchmark S&P 500 produced its worst first-half return since 1970. Meanwhile, the growth-centric Nasdaq Composite plunged 34% on a peak-to-trough basis since hitting its all-time closing high in November.

Everything from weak economic growth and historically high inflation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further upsetting the global energy supply chain has contributed to this challenging year.

Yet, in spite of the stock market plunging throughout much of the year, billionaire investors have stood their ground. Billionaire money managers are well aware that every notable pullback in the market has proved to be a buying opportunity over the long run.

What Are Billionaires Investing In?

It has been a hard couple of years for the economy, and this is reflected in the ups and downs of the stock market. Without risk, there is no reward, and that is the sentiment of highly successful billionaires. Sure, when they invest they have a cushion, and investing like them does not mean you’ll become a billionaire, but it never hurts to take a step in that direction.

The stocks the wealthiest people in the world are buying.

• Alphabet (GOOG)
• Amazon (AMZN)
• Colgate-Palmolive (CL)
• Constellation Energy (CEG)
• Dollar General (DG)
• Meta Platforms (META)
• Microsoft (MSFT)
• PayPal Holdings (PYPL)
• Snowflake (SNOW)

Billionaire Investors Don’t Agree On Much

It’s remarkable how little agreement there is among the nearly 50 institutional funds tracked by Empire.

Roughly 310 of the more than 380 stocks were added by just one big fund during the second quarter. And two investors only agreed on adding 22 stocks. So to see three or more of these influential funds actually agreeing on a stock to add speaks volumes.

10 Stock Picks That Billionaires Love

Here are 10 of the most recent top stock picks from the billionaire class. In each case, the billionaire below has initiated a substantial position or added to an existing one. Several of these investments are popular blue-chip stocks, while others keep a much lower profile. Some of these names might even surprise you.

Amazon.com

Billionaire investor: Philippe Laffont (Coatue Management)
Stake value: $437.4 million
Percent of portfolio: 5.3%

Nexstar Media Group

Billionaire investor: Steven Tananbaum (Goldentree Asset Management)
Stake value: $82.0 million
Percent of portfolio: 5.3%

Snowflake

Billionaire investor: Daniel Sundheim (D1 Capital Partners)
Stake value: $254.5 million
Percent of portfolio: 6.0%

Meta Platforms

Billionaire investor: Chase Coleman, III (Tiger Global Management)
Stake value: $724.5 million
Percent of portfolio: 6.1%

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

Billionaire investor: Stephen Mandel (Lone Pine Capital)
Stake value: $730.4 million
Percent of portfolio: 6.9%

Microsoft

Billionaire investor: John Armitage (Egerton Capital)
Stake value: $1.4 billion
Percent of portfolio: 9.3%

S&P Global

Billionaire investor: Chris Hohn (TCI Fund Management)
Stake value: $3.0 billion
Percent of portfolio: 9.4%

Qorvo

Billionaire investor: Seth Klarman (Baupost Group)
Stake value: $657.1 million
Percent of portfolio: 9.7%

Constellation Energy

Billionaire investor: David Tepper (Appaloosa Management)
Stake value: $154.6 million
Percent of portfolio: 9.7%

Freeport-McMoRan

Billionaire investor: Andrew Law (Caxton Associates)
Stake value: $113.7 million
Percent of portfolio: 11.1%

 

Billionaires Have Been Buying These 7 Stocks as the Market Plunges

Based on recent 13F filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it’s become clear that billionaire fund managers have been buyers as the market plunges.

Here’s what seven prominent billionaires have been buying.

Paul Singer: PayPal Holdings

Billionaire activist investor Paul Singer of Elliott Investment Management has been a busy bee in 2022. Most notably, he’s taken a roughly $2 billion stake in fintech stock PayPal Holdings (PYPL -4.33%), which was disclosed by PayPal in its second-quarter earnings release.

Philippe Laffont: Upstart Holdings

Philippe Laffont may not be a household name among billionaire money managers, but he successfully oversees Coatue Management, a hedge fund with almost $8.3 billion in assets under management. In the latest quarter, Laffont added almost $75 million in shares of cloud-based lending platform Upstart Holdings (UPST -3.90%).

Warren Buffett: Occidental Petroleum

The Oracle of Omaha, who’s been CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A -0.34%) (BRK.B -0.38%) since 1965, probably needs no introduction. Among the 16 stocks Warren Buffett has purchased this year, none has raised more eyebrows than oil stock Occidental Petroleum (OXY -5.32%). Berkshire has acquired nearly 188.4 million shares of Occidental this year, as of Aug. 8.

Steve Cohen: CrowdStrike Holdings

Billionaire Steve Cohen, who’s known just as much for owning baseball’s New York Mets as he is for running Point72 Asset Management, has been an active buyer of cybersecurity stock CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD -2.35%) as the market plunges. Cohen’s fund bought close to 820,000 shares of CrowdStrike during the second quarter.

im Simons: Shopify

Billionaire Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies has thousands upon thousands of positions. However, cloud-based e-commerce platform Shopify (SHOP -4.25%) became one of Renaissance’s largest positions during the second quarter, with a greater than 14-million-share aggregate buy.

Ray Dalio: CVS Health

Bridgewater Associates’ billionaire money manager Ray Dalio has also been an active buyer. Dalio chose to pile into CVS Health (CVS 0.47%) as the market plunged. Bridgewater bought close to 1.94 million shares during the second quarter, which increased the fund’s stake by 159% from the March-ended quarter.

Jeff Yass: Amazon

Last but not least, billionaire Jeff Yass of Susquehanna International has been buying FAANG stock Amazon (AMZN -2.88%) as the market plunges. Susquehanna added close to 6.6 million shares of Amazon during the second quarter, which increased its stake to approximately 15.2 million shares.

 

What’s in Warren Buffett’s Portfolio?

Warren Buffett and his holding company Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) are giants.

Berkshire Hathaway became a leading conglomerate because of Buffett’s investing and its business-savvy ways. Buffett’s track record could continue to improve due to the potential for several of his top stocks to outperform.

After the second quarter, Berkshire added even more to its stake in Occidental Petroleum. On Aug. 19, 2022, the giant conglomerate received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to buy as much as 50% of Occidental.

STOCK	NUMBER OF SHARES OWNED	SHARE COUNT INCREASE OVER Q1 2022	VALUE OF TOTAL STAKE
Ally Financial (NYSE:ALLY)	30,000,000	30%	$1.05 billion
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)	894,802,319	<1%	$123.3 billion
Celanese (NYSE:CE)	9,156,714	16%	$1.1 billion
Chevron (NYSE:CVX)	161,890,149	2%	$23.4 billion
Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY)	158,549,729	16%	$9.3 billion
Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA)	78,421,645	14%	$1.9 billion

7 Supercharged Growth Stocks Billionaires Can’t Stop Buying

Billionaire money managers piled on to these fast-paced companies during the third quarter.

Amid a flurry of earnings reports and economic-data announcements, you may have missed one of the most important data releases of the entire quarter on November 14. That’s when money managers and wealthy individuals with at least $100 million in assets under management were required to file Form 13F with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Philippe Laffont: PayPal Holdings

First up is billionaire Philippe Laffont of Coatue Management, who oversaw the purchase of 3.47 million shares of fintech-stock PayPal Holdings (PYPL -4.60%) during the third quarter. This came close to quadrupling Coatue’s stake in PayPal from just three months prior.

Israel Englander: Intuitive Surgical

For billionaire Israel Englander of Millennium Management, robotic-assisted surgical-systems developer Intuitive Surgical (ISRG -0.41%) was a stock he couldn’t stop buying in the third quarter. Englander’s fund scooped up 567,169 shares, which increased its position by 97% in just three months.

Paul Singer: Pinterest

Billionaire activist-investor Paul Singer of Elliott Investment Management was a busy bee during the third quarter, with a notable buy of 10 million shares of social media stock Pinterest (PINS -3.51%). This tripled Singer’s fund’s stake from the sequential second quarter.

Jim Simons: Airbnb

As for billionaire Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, his eyes were fully set on host-and-stay marketplace Airbnb (ABNB -2.79%). Simons added more than 1.67 million shares of Airbnb in the latest quarter, pushing Airbnb to become Renaissance’s third-largest holding by market value.

Ole Andreas Halvorsen: Visa

Billionaire fund-manager Ole Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global Investors “charged” ahead in the third quarter with a big buy of payment processor Visa (V -1.91%). Viking added 2.79 million shares of the payment giant in the September-ended quarter, which increased its stake by 109% from the second quarter.

Chase Coleman: Snowflake

Billionaire Chase Coleman of Tiger Global Management has been a big buyer of supercharged growth stocks for years. That didn’t change in the third quarter, with Coleman overseeing the purchase of 471,324 shares of cloud data-warehousing company Snowflake (SNOW -5.11%). This brought Tiger Global’s stake to north of 2.6 million shares.

Jeff Yass: Amazon

Last but not least, billionaire Jeff Yass of Susquehanna International clicked the “buy now” button repeatedly on e-commerce player Amazon (AMZN -3.18%). Yass’ fund added nearly 9.6 million shares, which increased its stake in Amazon by 63% to around 24.8 million shares.

 

7 Stocks Billionaires are Buying Now

It isn’t easy to figure out which stocks billionaires are buying right now. With sky-high inflation, fears of recession, weak economic growth, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a weaker consumer, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 12% on the year.

The S&P 500 is down 21%, with the NASDAQ down about 32%.

It’s been a terrible year. Yet, even as markets plunged, billionaire heavyweights have been buying beaten-down names.

That’s because they know every pullback has proven itself to be a long-term buy opportunity.

Here’s a quick list of stocks billionaires are buying now.

Colgate-Palmolive (CL)

Billionaire Dan Loeb’s Third Point just bought about $1 billion worth of Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL).

That’s because the firm sees value in a potential spinoff of its Hill’s Pet Nutrition segment. According to Barron, if the company were to spin it off, that side of the business could see a valuation of about $20 billion.

AGNC Investment (AGNC)

With a yield of 18.2%, it’s no surprise billionaire investors are backing up the truck on mortgage real estate investment trust (REIT) AGNC Investment (NASDAQ:AGNC).

Billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors picked up just over 4.2 million shares of AGNC in the second quarter. Even Millennium Management’s Israel Englander bought about 2.8 million shares, as well.

Medical Properties (MPW)

Israel Englander’s Millennium Management firm picked up about 1.5 million shares of Medical Properties(NYSE:MPW), a down-and-out medical REIT that’s just starting to rebound. It carries a dividend yield of 10.69% at the moment and is another one of the top stocks billionaires are buying because of its current dividend yield.

Occidental Petroleum (OXY)

Warren Buffett loves Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY). In late September his Berkshire Hathaway firm invested another $350 million into the oil stock. That now raises the firm’s holdings to 194 million shares or 20.8% of the company.

PayPal (PYPL)

PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) has been beaten silly. Since mid-2021, the stock fell from about $300 to $87.35. All after the company was forced to cut its guidance on concerns sky-high inflation could put a dent in consumer spending.

Nvidia (NVDA)

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is another one of the top stocks billionaires are buying. In the second quarter, billionaires John Overdeck and David Siegel of Two Sigma Investments bought just over 1.2 million shares of NVDA. While the stock plummeted in recent months, it’s starting to show big signs of life again.

DexCom (DXCM)

After falling off a cliff, shares of DexCom (NASDAQ:DXCM) are also showing signs of life again.

Since the start of the year, the DXCM sipped from about $140 to a low of just under $70, before recovering to $101.25. Helping, billionaire Steven Cohen and Point72 Asset Management bought more than 900,000 shares of DXCM in the second quarter.