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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Billionaire Ken Griffin Just Bought More Shares of These Unstoppable Dividend Stocks
Investors have been hit with a great deal of volatility and uncertainty in the markets lately. Even so, these two companies are healthcare leaders that can still perform well. Both have solid growth prospects and have increased their payouts for a combined 101 years. 10 stocks we like better than Medtronic › Some stock-trading platforms enable their users to automatically replicate the positions taken by experienced investors or other famous figures. Many investors might prefer to do their own research before buying shares of a company, but it's still a good idea to pay attention to some of the moves more experienced names on Wall Street make. Take Ken Griffin, a successful money manager and the billionaire CEO of Citadel Advisors, the hedge fund he founded. During the first quarter, Griffin and his team made several moves that investors, including those seeking reliable dividend payers, should seriously consider copying. The hedge fund added shares of Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) and AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV). Here's why these two are top options for dividend seekers. Medtronic checks several of the boxes that dividend investors look to find. Let's consider three of them. First, the company develops and markets medical devices. As a leader in a defensive industry, Medtronic tends to perform better than most even in challenging conditions. The business is highly unlikely to go under, which means there is less risk of payout cuts. Medtronic's shares have performed slightly better than the S&P 500 this year -- despite significant volatility and fears of a recession -- while it continues to generate steady revenue and profits. That's precisely what income seekers want. Second, Medtronic has several important growth avenues. The company is inching closer to approval in the U.S. for its Hugo device, a robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) system, in urologic procedures. That will mark the device's grand commercial entrance into the U.S. market. Medtronic should seek label expansions for it in the future. The RAS industry appears to be significantly underpenetrated. As Medtronic pointed out two years ago, less than 5% of procedures that could be performed robotically currently are. The company's Hugo system will unlock massive long-term growth opportunities and help it continue delivering consistent financial results just as it has been doing. Third, Medtronic has an impeccable dividend track record, having grown its payouts for 48 consecutive years. Its 3.4% forward yield is above the S&P 500's average of 1.3%. Medtronic currently faces some challenges, including the threat of tariffs. It expects a net tariff hit of between $200 million and $350 million during its fiscal year 2026 (which just started). However, Medtronic is looking for ways to mitigate the impact of tariffs. For its fiscal 2026, it projected revenue growth of 5% year over year and adjusted earnings-per-share (EPS) growth of 1% at the midpoint, including the impact of tariffs. These trade developments will harm the company in the short term, but Medtronic should find ways to minimize the negative impact in the long term if these tariffs remain in place for an extended period, which is by no means certain. In my view, even with that threat, Medtronic remains a top stock to buy and hold for the long term, especially for dividend seekers. AbbVie's shares fell off a cliff in November after an otherwise promising pipeline program flopped in a phase 2 study. The drugmaker is no stranger to clinical setbacks. No pharmaceutical giant is. However, AbbVie's underlying business still looks incredibly solid. The company's revenue and earnings are growing at a good clip largely thanks to its two immunology superstars, Skyrizi and Rinvoq. Management expects these medicines to hit $31 billion in combined sales by 2027 (versus $17.7 billion last year). However, AbbVie's greatest strength isn't its current lineup of immunology medicines. It's the company's ability to overcome clinical setbacks and major patent cliffs by successfully developing newer and better medicines. Skyrizi and Rinvoq helped AbbVie move beyond Humira, its former top-selling medicine, which lost U.S. patent exclusivity in January 2023. Skyrizi and Rinvoq overlap with many of Humira's indications, sometimes with greater efficacy. AbbVie's deep pipeline should enable it to develop successors to its current crop of drugs even if it has to endure setbacks along the way. AbbVie's business is impressive and so is its dividend history. The company has increased its payouts for 53 consecutive years -- making it a Dividend King -- and currently offers a forward yield of 3.6%. AbbVie is an outstanding dividend stock despite the issues it has encountered in the past two years. Before you buy stock in Medtronic, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Medtronic wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $656,825!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $865,550!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 994% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Prosper Junior Bakiny has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends AbbVie. The Motley Fool recommends Medtronic and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $75 calls on Medtronic and short January 2026 $85 calls on Medtronic. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Billionaire Ken Griffin Just Bought More Shares of These Unstoppable Dividend Stocks was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Should You Follow These 2 Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers and Buy Bitcoin?
Two billionaire hedge fund managers made big additions to their Bitcoin positions in Q1 2025. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have become a valuable tool for adjusting Bitcoin allocations. For the typical investor, a 1% Bitcoin allocation is now considered reasonable. 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin › Although Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is only up 11% for the year, it has regained some of its early-year momentum and is close to regaining its all-time high of $109,000 from January. Even the biggest crypto skeptics have to acknowledge that Bitcoin -- up almost 25% during the past 30 days -- is proving remarkably resilient in the face of continued macroeconomic uncertainty. So it's, perhaps, no surprise that some of the biggest hedge fund managers in the world are also turning their attention to Bitcoin. Based on recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Form 13F quarterly filings, it appears that two billionaire hedge fund managers -- Steven Cohen of 72Point Asset Management and Ken Griffin of Citadel Advisors -- are now loading up on Bitcoin. So should you be doing the same? By analyzing SEC filings, it is possible to get some tangible numbers on just how much Bitcoin these two billionaires are buying. What's interesting is that they are using the new spot Bitcoin ETFs -- and, specifically, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (NASDAQ: IBIT) -- as their preferred way to get exposure to Bitcoin. For the quarter ended March 31, Cohen boosted the value of his iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF holdings to $198.9 million. He purchased 1.39 million new shares, and now owns 4.25 million, for an increase of 49%. During that same time period, Griffin boosted the value of his iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF holdings to $146.9 million. He purchased 2.08 million new shares, and now owns 3.14 million, for a head-spinning increase of 195%. Those might sound like staggering totals, but here's the thing: The sizes of these two hedge funds are so big that Bitcoin still accounts for less than 1% of their portfolios. In the case of Point72 Asset Management, this Bitcoin ETF position is 0.56% of the total portfolio. In the case of Citadel Advisors, the position is just 0.14% of the total portfolio. Although the SEC filings present a valuable view of what's happening with the holdings of these two billionaire hedge fund managers, it's still an incomplete view. It's just a snapshot in time, letting us know what happened during the first quarter of the year. While we really don't know the precise motivations of these two big-name investors, we can certainly speculate. In the first quarter of the year, Bitcoin was on yet another epic run. Pro-crypto euphoria was everywhere. On the day of the presidential inauguration, Bitcoin hit an all-time high of more than $109,000. So, obviously, Bitcoin seemed to possess a tremendous amount of upside potential for the year. Of course, it's also possible to speculate that these investors were buying Bitcoin as a hedge against macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. After all, Bitcoin historically has had little correlation with any major asset class. That makes it a potential hedge against macroeconomic factors such as inflation, which was a major topic of discussion during the early part of the year. So it will be interesting to check out what happened to these Bitcoin positions over Q2. Did tariff uncertainty and Bitcoin's brief decline below the $75,000 mark lead them to dump their Bitcoin positions? Or, did fears of tariff-induced inflation and a potential recession lead them to load up on yet more Bitcoin as a hedge against a worst-case economic scenario? It's also important to point out that not all hedge fund managers are loading up on Bitcoin. If you take a look at a hedge fund database, search for holdings of the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, and then see who's buying and selling, a number of the top holders of this Bitcoin ETF were actually selling their positions. Much of this buying and selling is likely about getting the Bitcoin allocation right. Griffin, for example, had almost no exposure to Bitcoin heading into 2025. So, while a massive jump of 195% in exposure sounds impressive, his overall Bitcoin allocation is still minuscule. Somewhat surprisingly, it appears that top hedge fund managers are keeping their Bitcoin allocations under the 1% level. About a dozen or so hedge fund managers are now over 1% when it comes to their Bitcoin allocations, but nobody appears to be going all-in on Bitcoin. So, if you are allocating more than 1% of your portfolio to Bitcoin, you may be taking on too much risk. Even a 1% target allocation might be aggressive, depending on where you are in your investing career. That thinking squares up with what BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), the company behind the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, recently advised investors in a report ("Sizing Bitcoin in Portfolios"). It suggested that, for the typical investor, a Bitcoin allocation around 1% is "reasonable." With top billionaires adjusting their exposure to Bitcoin, smaller investor might consider doing so as well. Just remember, though, the overall diversification of your portfolio is much more important. There's room for Bitcoin in your portfolio, but it shouldn't be a disproportionate part of your holdings. Before you buy stock in Bitcoin, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Bitcoin wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $642,582!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $829,879!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 975% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Should You Follow These 2 Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers and Buy Bitcoin? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
