Warren Buffett takes a slice of Domino’s. Ken Griffin, David Tepper and Steve Cohen are shedding Amazon shares. Here’s what SEC filings reveal about recent moves of the world’s richest and most successful investors.
Over the past 30 months, the reported moves of billionaire investors were a major consideration in the strategies we have used to construct our two Forbes Billionaire Investor model portfolios, but they were not the only factor. We also sought out stocks that had compelling value appeal with low debt levels and strong business fundamentals, which means stocks trading at depressed valuations that still produce rising revenues and profits. Except for Walt Disney (DIS), which had exceptional interest from activist billionaire investors, we’ve required our stocks to pay dividends. We also wanted to see evidence of recent insider buying among company managers and directors.
The strategy has yielded great success. When we launched Forbes Billionaire Investor in September 2022, we bought large-cap future home runs like retail success stories Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS +118%) and Ross Stores (ROST +90%), as well as “Magnificent Seven” member Microsoft (MSFT +84%). Among small- and mid-caps we had F&G Annuities & Life (FG +176%), lighting specialist Acuity Brands (AYI +99%), midstream oil and gas MLP Antero Midstream (AM +97%) and mortgage insurer Radian Group (RDN +96%).
Monitoring Moves Of Billionaire Investors
Since 1934, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has required investment managers who exercise discretion over at least $100 million worth of assets to report their holdings on a quarterly basis via form 13F. These publicly available documents provide individual investors with a detailed look into the portfolio moves of hedge funds, private equity and other investment funds, but the information arrives with significant delays. Investment managers do not need to report their buys and sells until 45 days after the end of the financial quarter in which they were made.
Especially for algorithmic and trading-oriented managers, quants like Ken Griffin of Citadel, Jeffrey Yass of Susquehanna International Group and Israel Englander of Millennium Management, if you were to buy every stock that superstar investors reported in their 13F filings, you could be buying many stocks that they have already sold. Holding periods tend to be longer for value style billionaires like Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and David Tepper of Apaloosa Management, who seek out long-term ownership, and for activist investors like Carl Icahn who tend to hold a stock long enough to shake up management teams and companies’ boards of directors.
Despite the lag times built into reporting requirements, 13F filings do provide small investors opportunities to identify areas of agreement among investment managers, and they do help you discern rising or falling ownership trends of specific managers. Moves into or out of particular sectors and industry groups become apparent, as do instances of investment conviction in single stocks. For example, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway just reported buying a $600 million stake in Domino’s Pizza (DPZ).
Buffett grabbing a slice of the Domino’s pie is one of 25 interesting insights gleaned from looking at the five biggest buys and five biggest sells of the five wealthiest self-made billionaire investors, according to Forbes. With a personal fortune in excess of $150 billion, Buffett is by far the wealthiest, almost triple the net worth of his closest rival, Susquehanna founder Jeffrey Yass, who is worth nearly $50 billion.
Presented below are the largest dollar-volume buys and sells of the world’s wealthiest investment managers.
Warren Buffett
Estimated net worth: $150.2 billion | Berkshire Hathaway
🟢 BUYS
- Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI)
- Domino’s Pizza (DPZ)
- Occidental Petroleum (OXY)
- Chubb Ltd. (CB)
- Heico (HEI)
🔴 SELLS
- Apple (AAPL)
- Bank Of America (BAC)
- Snowflake (SNOW)
- Chevron (CVX)
- Capital One Financial (COF)
From our perspective, it was most encouraging to see Berkshire initiating a $225 million stake in October’s large-cap buy, aerospace and defense supplier Heico (HEI), based in Hollywood, Fla. Buffett joins eight other billionaires in Heico, the largest stake held by Florida billionaire optometrist and inventor Herbert Wertheim, who owns 7.5% of Heico’s outstanding shares. Buffett continues to slash his ownership of Apple and Bank of America although both stocks still represent Berkshire Hathaway’s first and third largest holdings, accounting for a respective 23% and 12% of its investment portfolio.
Jeffrey Yass
Estimated net worth: $49.6 billion | Susquehanna International Group
🟢 BUYS
- Nvidia (NVDA)
- J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM)
- Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY)
- Comfort Systems USA (FIX)
- Walmart (WMT)
🔴 SELLS
- SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY)
- Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ)
- Kenvue (KVUE)
- Apple (AAPL)
- Emcor Group (EME)
Pennsylvania billionaire Jeffey Yass’ Susquehanna International Group reported selling off 69% of its Apple holdings over the past six months and still held 210,000 shares. Susquehanna also embraced a dour view of the overall market with sales of the SPDR S&P 500 and Invesco QQQ Trust ETFs. Nonetheless, QQQ is still Susquehanna’s second largest holding behind Nvidia, of which it holds 3.4 million shares, up from 2.4 million at the end of 2023.
Ken Griffin
Estimated net worth: $47.0 billion | Citadel Advisors
🟢 BUYS
- Atlassian (TEAM)
- Charter Communications (CHTR)
- Medtronic (MDT)
- Equinix (EQIX)
- Marriott International (MAR)
🔴 SELLS
- Bank Of America (BAC)
- Amazon.com (AMZN)
- AppLovin (APP)
- Talen Energy (TLN)
- Microsoft (MSFT)
Through his majority ownership of financial market making firm Citadel Securities,which is valued at $22 billion,Ken Griffin would be a multi-billionaire even without his Citadel Advisors hedge fund, but it’s only because of his successful fund that he owns the equally successful securities brokerage firm business.Citadel has been taking technology sector profits in Amazon and Microsoft, as well as mobile app company AppLovin. Citadel’s biggest buy, however, was also in tech but from Australia: collaboration software maker Atlassian (TEAM). It was also an avid buyer of medical implant maker Medtronic (MDT).
Steven Cohen
Estimated net worth: $21.3 billion | Point72 Asset Management
🟢 BUYS
- Comcast (CMCSA)
- Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM)
- Reddit (RDDT)
- EQT (EQT)
- ConocoPhillips (COP)
🔴 SELLS
- Broadcom (AVGO)
- Amazon.com (AMZN)
- AT&T (T)
- Fox (FOXA)
- Royal Caribbean Group (RCL)
The biggest buy that New York Mets owner Steven Cohen is now considering is whether he should sign superstar free agent Juan Soto to a several hundred-million dollar deal this offseason. Recently, Cohen’s Point72 hedge fund was both bullish and bearish on broadcasting. It scooped up shares of NBC owner Comcast, shares of which recently got a bump higher after the company floated plans to sell its cable networks, while unloading stock in fellow broadcast and cable stock Fox. Broadcom and Amazon are two big names that Cohen has been selling.
David Tepper
Estimated net worth: $21.3 billion | Appaloosa Management
🟢 BUYS
- PDD Holdings (PDD)
- Lyft (LYFT)
- Vistra (VST)
- JD.com (JD)
- NRG Energy (NRG)
🔴 SELLS
- Nvidia (NVDA)
- Meta Platforms (META)
- Microsoft (MSFT)
- Oracle (ORCL)
- Amazon.com (AMZN)
Like Cohen, David Tepper is also a professional sports franchise owner with his majority stake in the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. The value of that stake has soared in the past two years even though the team’s on-field performance has continued to underwhelm. Tepper’s Appaloosa hedge fund has been locking in gains of several “Magnificent Seven” stocks, particularly Nvidia, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. Despite President-elect Trump’s anti-China rhetoric, the value investor’s biggest buy is from Shanghai: PDD Holdings, which owns online marketplace Temu. Another recent China buy from Tepper is JD.com.
This article represents the views only of the subject and should not be regarded as the provision of advice of any nature from Forbes Australia. The article is intended to provide general information only and does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation or needs. Past performance is not necessarily indicativeof future performance. You should seek independent Financial and tax advice before making any decision based on this information, the views or information expressed in this article.
This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
