5 Most Famous Hedge Fund Managers and Their Top Stock Picks

This article presents an overview of the 5 Most Famous Hedge Fund Managers and Their Top Stock Picks. For a detailed overview of such stocks, read our article, 22 Most Famous Hedge Fund Managers and Their Top Stock Picks.

5. Stanley Freeman Druckenmiller

Top Stock Pick: NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller is one of the most keenly followed money managers in the Street. The 70-year-old investor started  Duquesne Capital in 1981 but closed it for outside investors after about three decades.

NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is the biggest position of Duquesne Capital as of the end of the September 2023 quarter. Druckenmiller has been repeatedly saying that the AI boom is here to stay and it could change everything in various industries.

In its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter, ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA):

“Much of that differential can be attributed to the performance of the Magnificent Seven (Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla), a basket of mega cap growth stocks that accounted for 47.8% of the benchmark return for the quarter and 65.4% for 2023.

The ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy maintains exposure to six of the seven stocks, with overweights in Amazon.com, Meta and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). Those three stocks, as well as Microsoft, were among the leading contributors to Strategy performance for the quarter. Microsoft and Nvidia continued to be supported by strong execution and leadership positions in the implementation of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

These are high-quality, cash flow generative businesses that we will continue to own, actively adjusting our positioning sizes based on risk/reward and portfolio construction priorities. With Nvidia shares more than tripling in 2023, we opportunistically took profits throughout the year, an approach that continued in the fourth quarter with additional trims that brought the position down to 6% of overall assets.

Active management of our mega cap exposure contributed to the Strategy outperforming the benchmark both in the fourth quarter and through the narrow leadership market of 2023. We also attribute these improved results to solid stock picking, being opportunistic in adding to or initiating new positions in growth companies at or near the bottom of their earnings cycle, and maintaining a commitment to diversification across our three buckets of growth: select, stable and cyclical.”