Latest news with #HedgeFund
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Higher Ed Has Never Been This Low
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a well-resourced, globally known and institutionally powerful school of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. President Trump can't seem to stop hating on Harvard, so I guess we gotta talk about it. Today, a letter revealed that his administration plans to rip up $100 million worth of federal contracts with the university. In case you need reminding, Harvard is the oldest and richest school in the nation, so people are very, ahem, passionate about it, as evidenced by this 2,264-word tweet billionaire hedge fund investor Bill Ackman fired off on Memorial Day.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Billionaire Bill Ackman bets big on battered e-commerce giant
What does it take to build a modern-day Berkshire Hathaway? Bill Ackman might have some ideas — and he's quietly putting them in motion. The billionaire hedge fund manager, best known for bold bets and highly concentrated investments, has made headlines over the past few weeks, including some major buys and tariff comments. On May 5, his Pershing Square Capital Management announced a $900 million deal to acquire 9 million newly issued shares of Howard Hughes Holdings () , a company Ackman plans to turn into a "modern-day version of Berkshire." Berkshire Hathaway was the conglomerate that Warren Buffett turned from a struggling textile manufacturer into a holding company owning a diverse range of businesses, including insurance, utilities, and retail. Investors see it as a model of long-term, value-oriented investing. "Fortunately, our starting base of assets won't be a dying textile company, but a very good business," Ackman wrote on X. "We will adopt similar, long-term, shareholder-oriented principles to Berkshire, and we intend to hold the stock forever." That same idea of buying strong businesses and holding them long-term is showing up elsewhere in Ackman's portfolio. Ackman's Pershing Square oversees a highly concentrated portfolio of just 11 stock holdings. The fund has delivered strong returns over time. It has returned 42.17% over the past three years and 149.55% over the past decade, according to data from May 22, Ackman told clients that his hedge fund bought shares of Inc. () last month, betting earnings will continue to grow as President Donald Trump's tariffs turned out to have less impact on consumers than expected. Amazon is one of the world's most valuable companies with a market value of more than $2 trillion. Its business spans e-commerce, cloud computing, logistics, and digital advertising. The stock had plummeted by over 30% after Trump's tariff announcement as investors worried about potential higher costs and weaker demand in Amazon's global retail business. However, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told investors this week that tariffs have not significantly impacted consumer spending or average sales prices. And Ackman's team also thinks tariffs would not have a "material impact on the earnings in the retail business." Pershing Square's Chief Investment Officer Ryan Israel said that the hedge fund bought Amazon shares at an "extremely attractive" price. He also expressed confidence that Amazon is able to handle any potential slowdown in its cloud business, Amazon Web Services. "The most substantial move is Amazon," Israel said on a conference call about the portfolio. He highlighted that Amazon is an "outstanding franchise" poised for more than 20% growth in earnings per share. Amazon shares have been recovering over the past month, up 11%. Still, the stock is down 8% year-to-date, while the S&P 500 is down 1% so far this year. Earlier this month, Amazon reported better-than-expected results for the first quarter, but it gave a cautious outlook for the current quarter as it still faces tariff-related uncertainties. The company posted earnings of $1.59 per share on $155.67 billion in revenue, both topping Wall Street forecasts. But it guided for second-quarter operating income between $13 billion and $17.5 billion, below the $17.64 billion analysts had expected. Amazon Web Services, its key profit engine, brought in $29.3 billion in revenue, slightly missing estimates. The cloud unit's growth slowed to 17%, down from 18.9% last quarter, marking its third straight revenue miss. Ackman also made some notable moves in the first quarter, the biggest of which was his new stake in Uber. According to a 13F filing, the billionaire invested nearly 18% of Pershing Square's capital in ride-share group Uber Technologies () . The investment totaled more than 30.3 million shares, now valued at $2.8 billion.'We believe that Uber is one of the best managed and highest quality businesses in the world,' Ackman wrote in an X post. More Tariffs: Tesla, Elon Musk make drastic decision amid U.S.-China trade war Major U.S. automaker makes harsh decision in the wake of tariff tussel Tariffs will devastate this entire industry Alongside the Uber buy, Ackman added to his stakes in Brookfield Corp., Howard Hughes, and Hertz () . Meanwhile, he cut positions in Chipotle () , Canadian Pacific () , Hilton () , and Alphabet's Class C shares, while boosting his stake in the Class A () . Ackman fully exited his position in Nike () in Q1, selling all 18.8 million Bill Ackman bets big on battered e-commerce giant first appeared on TheStreet on May 24, 2025 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
CNBC
21-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Goldman's hedge fund stock portfolio is up 6% during this volatile year
A group of hedge funds' favorite stocks is beating the broader market even as volatility runs wild on Wall Street, according to Goldman Sachs. The Wall Street bank analyzed the holdings of 684 fundamentally driven hedge funds with $3.1 trillion of gross equity positions at the end of March, based on regulatory filings. It then compiled a basket of the most popular long positions, dubbed Goldman's "Hedge Fund VIP basket," consisting of 50 stocks that most frequently appear among hedge funds' 10 largest holdings. "From an implementation standpoint, the Hedge Fund VIP list represents a tool for investors seeking to 'follow the smart money' based on 13-F filings," Goldman said in a note to clients. The VIP basket has outperformed the S & P 500 this year with a gain of 6%, compared to the S & P 500′s mere 1% return. This Goldman portfolio has a long history of beating the market, trouncing the S & P 500 in 59% of the quarters since 2001. The stock market has experienced extreme volatility this year as the macro environment grew uncertain. President Donald Trump's shocking tariff rollout early April pushed the S & P 500 briefly into bear market territory, and weeks later, the equity benchmark fully made back those losses as some of the heavy duties were paused. Big Tech stocks are still well-loved by hedge funds at the end of the first quarter. Amazon , Meta , Microsoft , Nvidia and Alphabet remained the five most popular stocks by the cohort. The tech sector also represents the largest weight (24%) in the basket. Apple slipped to the No. 9 spot on the list from No. 6 at the end of 2024. The iPhone maker has underperformed the market this year, with shares down more than 17%. As for other names tied to the artificial intelligence theme, Lam Research and Micron Technology joined this quarter's list of hedge fund VIPs, Goldman said.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Liberty Broadband Corporation (LBRDA): Among Billionaire Paul Singer's Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential
We recently published a list of Billionaire Paul Singer's 10 Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Liberty Broadband Corporation (NASDAQ:LBRDA) stands against other stock picks with huge upside potential. Paul Singer founded Elliott Investment Management in 1977 in New York. It is one of the oldest hedge funds under continuous management and is also one of the largest activist funds in the world. It is the management affiliate of American hedge funds Elliott Associates and Elliott International Limited. Launched in 1994, Elliott International Limited has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 index by ~5 percentage points annually since its inception, which is a track record mirrored by Elliott Associates. Paul Singer earned a BS in psychology from the University of Rochester and a JD from Harvard Law School. He then spent 4 years working in corporate law firms and the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette before founding Elliott Investment Management. Elliott Management has 38 clients and discretionary assets under management (AUM) of $97.37 billion, according to the Form ADV dated 13 February 2025. The last reported 13F filing for Q4 2024 included $16.66 billion in managed 13F securities and a top 10 holdings concentration of 82.44%. Singer has built a reputation on Wall Street for his aggressive tactics that often generate significant shareholder value by exploiting weaknesses in various asset classes. His initial approach to investing was to target companies and even governments while purchasing extremely distressed debt. In February 2025, Singer appeared on a Podcast titled 'In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen', where he also discussed what he believes is the reason behind bad investments. While bad luck remains a relevant factor, he believes that these failures result from oversights and inadequate and/or incorrect hedging strategies: 'Sometimes it's bad luck, but more frequently it's (that) we missed something. We missed. Or the hedges weren't, they weren't the right hedges. The tracking error was much more than we expected. At the beginning of my career, 1977 to like 1987, hedging was much more simple, because we were long a convertible bond and short the stock into which the convertible was convertible. So that's very straightforward. And tracking error wasn't really a factor. We've become much more sophisticated in hedging, in creating bespoke hedges for different kinds of trades. But even those don't work out exactly, you know, all the time. But sometimes, you know, the worst trades, and I don't mind mentioning them, it's a kind of a form of therapy and a pedagogical exercise. The worst trades are the trades that you misunderstand the risk. You put it into the wrong category.' To compile the list of billionaire Paul Singer's 10 stock picks with huge upside potential, we sifted through Q4 2024 13F filings of Elliott Management from Insider Monkey. From these filings, we checked the upside potential from CNN for the top 20 stock picks and ranked the stocks in ascending order of this upside potential. We have also added Elliott Management's stake in each stock as well as the broader hedge fund sentiment for it. Note: All data was sourced on May 8. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here). A technician in a telecom facility installing wireless routers and operating on a computer. Elliott Management's Stake: $178.26 million Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 22 Average Upside Potential as of May 8: 16.48% Liberty Broadband Corporation (NASDAQ:LBRDA) engages in communications businesses in the US. It operates in two segments: GCI Holdings and Charter. The GCI Holdings segment provides a range of data, wireless, video, voice, and managed services. The Charter segment offers subscription-based internet, video, and mobile & voice services. GCI achieved a record revenue of over $1 billion in 2024, which was an increase of 4% year-over-year. This is because GCI's business data revenue experienced growth due to an upgrade cycle within school and healthcare corporations in rural Alaska. However, within its consumer segment, GCI experienced a decline in subscribers. Revenue-generating wireless subscribers decreased by 300, and cable modem subscribers declined by 4,900, with ~3,800 of these cable modem losses attributed to the expiration of the Affordable Connectivity Program. Earlier this year, analyst Matthew Harrigan maintained his Buy rating on the stock and labeled it an attractive investment opportunity. However, he lowered the price target from $130 to $115 due to current market conditions. Conventum – Alluvium Global Fund is positive on the company and stated the following regarding Liberty Broadband Corporation (NASDAQ:LBRDA) in its Q3 2024 investor letter: 'Liberty Broadband Corporation (NASDAQ:LBRDA) (up 40.7%), has investments in the broadband sector via Charter Communications and GCI Holdings, which represents Liberty's Alaskan operations. Charter announced pleasing second quarter results. So far it has retained the vast majority of the former Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) recipients (but this is yet to fully play out), its mobile business is gaining further traction (with a strong reception to its phone upgrade and service plans), and good progress is being made on cost management. Both Liberty and Charter's share prices rose (by 15.0% and 16.6%) on the release of these results. But there was no cause for any change to our analysis nor valuation – and both still appeared cheap to us. Then, later in the quarter Liberty received a proposal from Charter to consolidate the entities (but excluding GCI). Liberty provided a counter proposal at a higher exchange ratio and that included GCI (which Charter's initial correspondence suggested may be entertained). Depending on how the value of GCI is accounted, the consideration difference is around 20-25%, which is not insurmountable in our view. The proposed simplified structure makes sense and is likely to be appreciated by investors on both sides. On the day this was announced, it was not surprising that Liberty's share price was up 28.4%, and Charter's fell marginally (down 2.5%). In our view, only now after the strong price gains is Liberty's trading price getting close to fair value. Accordingly, no action was warranted and our Liberty position now stands at 7.1%.' Overall, LBRDA ranks 10th on our list of billionaire Paul Singer's stock picks with huge upside potential. While we acknowledge the potential of LBRDA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold great promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than LBRDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. 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
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pinterest, Inc. (PINS): Among Billionaire Paul Singer's Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential
We recently published a list of Billionaire Paul Singer's 10 Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) stands against other stock picks with huge upside potential. Paul Singer founded Elliott Investment Management in 1977 in New York. It is one of the oldest hedge funds under continuous management and is also one of the largest activist funds in the world. It is the management affiliate of American hedge funds Elliott Associates and Elliott International Limited. Launched in 1994, Elliott International Limited has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 index by ~5 percentage points annually since its inception, which is a track record mirrored by Elliott Associates. Paul Singer earned a BS in psychology from the University of Rochester and a JD from Harvard Law School. He then spent 4 years working in corporate law firms and the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette before founding Elliott Investment Management. Elliott Management has 38 clients and discretionary assets under management (AUM) of $97.37 billion, according to the Form ADV dated 13 February 2025. The last reported 13F filing for Q4 2024 included $16.66 billion in managed 13F securities and a top 10 holdings concentration of 82.44%. Singer has built a reputation on Wall Street for his aggressive tactics that often generate significant shareholder value by exploiting weaknesses in various asset classes. His initial approach to investing was to target companies and even governments while purchasing extremely distressed debt. In February 2025, Singer appeared on a Podcast titled 'In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen', where he also discussed what he believes is the reason behind bad investments. While bad luck remains a relevant factor, he believes that these failures result from oversights and inadequate and/or incorrect hedging strategies: 'Sometimes it's bad luck, but more frequently it's (that) we missed something. We missed. Or the hedges weren't, they weren't the right hedges. The tracking error was much more than we expected. At the beginning of my career, 1977 to like 1987, hedging was much more simple, because we were long a convertible bond and short the stock into which the convertible was convertible. So that's very straightforward. And tracking error wasn't really a factor. We've become much more sophisticated in hedging, in creating bespoke hedges for different kinds of trades. But even those don't work out exactly, you know, all the time. But sometimes, you know, the worst trades, and I don't mind mentioning them, it's a kind of a form of therapy and a pedagogical exercise. The worst trades are the trades that you misunderstand the risk. You put it into the wrong category.' To compile the list of billionaire Paul Singer's 10 stock picks with huge upside potential, we sifted through Q4 2024 13F filings of Elliott Management from Insider Monkey. From these filings, we checked the upside potential from CNN for the top 20 stock picks and ranked the stocks in ascending order of this upside potential. We have also added Elliott Management's stake in each stock as well as the broader hedge fund sentiment for it. Note: All data was sourced on May 8. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here). A young, stylish woman using her smartphone to find inspiration for her latest DIY project. Elliott Management's Stake: $812 million Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 73 Average Upside Potential as of May 8: 44.48% Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) is a visual search & discovery platform that allows people to find ideas, such as recipes, home, and style inspiration. It also allows them to search, save, and shop the ideas. The company offers various advertising products to help advertisers meet users, and an ad auction that allows advertisers to serve ads to users at relevant moments to optimize business outcomes. In Q4 2024, Pinterest achieved its first $1 billion revenue quarter with 18% revenue growth, which was partly driven by a record number of clicks during the holiday season. The platform's weekly active to monthly active user ratio also reached an all-time high of 62% in 2024. This success was further fueled by improvements in the company's advertising platform. Clicks to advertisers grew over 90% in Q4, even after lapping the initial launch of direct links from the previous year. Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) focuses on actionability, relevance, and curation, while distinguishing itself as a positive place online. For 2025, management plans to use AI and its unique first-party signal to drive more personalized experiences. Renaissance Large Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) in its Q4 2024 investor letter: 'We made several changes to the portfolio in the fourth quarter. Most recently, we added a new position in the Communication Services sector in December with Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS), a leading visual search and discovery platform with a unique curation function that enables users to find and display new ideas and creations that focus on interests such as fashion and home décor among other consumer goods. Since 2022, a new management team has transformed Pinterest into a shopping platform, providing more value and capabilities to advertisers includ ing direct connection with users, resulting in higher profits. In addition, the company was an early adopter of AI to increase personalization, advertising relevance options, and automated processes to increase ease-of-use for smaller advertisers. In the near term, we expect Pinterest to see monetization improvements with upside to Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and traction in new categories and international markets.' Overall, PINS ranks 5th on our list of billionaire Paul Singer's stock picks with huge upside potential. While we acknowledge the potential of PINS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold great promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PINS but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
