Bruce Kovner founded Caxton Associates in 1983, a New York-based trading and investment firm that was formed as the successor to Caxton Associates LP. Caxton is a wholly owned subsidiary of Caxton Europe LLP. Kovner retired in 2011, and his firm returned an average of 21% per year between its inception in 1983 and 2011. With his long-time partner Peter D’Angelo in charge of Caxton’s operations, Kovner concentrated on trading the financial and commodity markets based on his views of macroeconomic conditions. He is featured in Jack Schwager’s book “Market Wizards” as one of the greatest traders of all time. Here’s one of Kovner’s popular trading quotes from the book:
“Risk management is the most important thing to be well understood. Undertrade, undertrade, undertrade is my second piece of advice. Whatever you think your position ought to be, cut it at least in half.”
A lot of individuals enter financial markets with the notion that successful investors know something that the common man does not. However, the truth is that experienced investors understand and accept the inherent uncertainty of market outcomes. So they focus on the interplay of probability and the balance between risk and reward. Kovner also believes in the process of adaptation and adjustment. Here’s what he had to say about dealing with highly uncertain markets:
“First, I have the ability to imagine configurations of the world different from today and really believe it can happen. I can imagine that soybean prices can double or that the dollar can fall to 100 yen. Second, I stay rational and disciplined under pressure.”
Kovner dropped out of Harvard University and floated around a few aimless jobs before finding his love for trading. He also founded the Kovner Foundation, which manages his philanthropic activities. Today, Kovner is chairman of CAM Capital (Caxton Alternative Management Capital), which invests his private assets. Caxton Associates has 13 clients and discretionary assets under management (AUM) of $4.18 billion, according to the firm’s Form ADV dated 15 January 2025. The last reported 13F filing for Q4 2024 included $3.18 billion in managed 13F securities and a top 10 holdings concentration of 63.18%.
That being said, we’re here with a list of billionaire Bruce Kovner’s 10 stock picks with huge upside potential.
Bruce Kovner of Caxton Associates LP
Our Methodology
To compile the list of billionaire Bruce Kovner’s 10 stock picks with huge upside potential, we sifted through Q4 2024 13F filings of Caxton Associates from Insider Monkey. From these filings, we checked the upside potential from CNN for the top 50 stock picks and ranked the stocks in ascending order of their upside potential. We have also added Caxton Associates’ stake in each stock as well as the broader hedge fund sentiment for it.
Note: All data was sourced on May 7.
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).
Billionaire Bruce Kovner’s 10 Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential
10. GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $4.46 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 52
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 21.01%
GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY) designs and develops cloud-based products in the US and internationally. It operates in two segments: Applications and Commerce (A&C) and Core Platform (Core). The A&C segment offers application products like Websites + Marketing, whereas the Core segment offers domain products like primary registrations and a domain aftermarket platform.
The A&C segment grew its revenue by 17% year-over-year to make $446 million in Q1 2025. This high-margin segment also saw a 14% increase in bookings, which indicated continued adoption of its subscription-based solutions. The A&C segment’s EBITDA margin also expanded by ~2% to reach 44%. These improvements are driven by pricing and bundling initiatives that focus on customer cohorts and integrate third-party products.
Furthermore, GoDaddy Airo, which is the company’s AI-powered tool, is also impacting the A&C segment by improving attach rates, term lengths, and renewals, with Websites + Marketing being a major beneficiary. GoDaddy Inc.’s (NYSE:GDDY) engages customers across the broader capabilities of Airo, with future potential in Agentic AI to further enhance customer value.
Munro Global Growth Small & Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Within the Digital Enterprise Area of Interest (AoI), both Wix and GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY) reported strong results for the quarter, with revenue, profit and free cash flows exceeding investors’ expectations. Both web builders’ management teams expressed confidence in their respective continued growth fuelled by new product features powered by AI innovations.”
9. Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $115.73 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 117
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 25.54%
Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) is a technology company that operates through its Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing & Advertising segments. It offers its solutions directly to enterprise customers through its sales force and local field offices, as well as directly to businesses and consumers. It also licenses its products to end-user customers through app stores and websites.
The company is increasingly monetizing its GenAI innovations. However, the rise of several GenAI models that offer free picture-generation capabilities puts Adobe at risk. Therefore, the company forecasts weaker-than-expected sales and earnings for its FQ2 2025 and full FY2025. Adobe expects its Q2 2025 earnings to average between $4.95 and $5. In FY2024, GenAI contributed $125 million to the total $4.23 billion that the company generated.
On April 25, Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss maintained a Buy rating on Adobe with an unchanged price target of $510 due to the company’s growth potential and current valuation. On April 23, the company also launched an AI-powered fan experience partnership with the National Football League. This will enable the NFL and all clubs to scale personalized fan touchpoints during the 2025 season.
Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“We added to several existing positions in the quarter including Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE), Workday, Shopify, MSCI, and Paycom Software. We feel Adobe is poised for re-accelerating revenue and earnings growth partially due to the monetization of its Firefly GenAI product embedded in its creative software.”
8. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $532.06 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 339
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 27.18%
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) provides consumer products, advertising, and subscription services through online and physical stores internationally. It operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services. It offers its products through its stores. These include merchandise and content purchased for resale, and products offered by third-party sellers.
Amazon is investing in AI infrastructure and services at every level of the stack. This is exemplified by the custom AI chip Trainium 2, which offers compelling price-performance advantages for model training. On May 5, Baird increased its price target for the stock from $215 to $220, while maintaining an Outperform rating.
The firm made this update after Amazon’s Q1 2025 results, where AWS was of significant focus. AWS generated $29.3 billion in Q1 revenue, which was up 17% year-over-year. AWS is experiencing growth across both its traditional cloud offerings and its GenAI business. Companies of all sizes are increasingly relying on AWS to modernize their infrastructure, such as Adobe and Uber.
Harding Loevner Global Developed Markets Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“During the quarter, we benefited from strong stocks within the Communication Services and Consumer Discretionary sectors. In Consumer Discretionary, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) reported strong third-quarter results. Revenue increased by double digits, led by growth in advertising and Al products, while the company’s operating margins also hit an all-time high of 11%. The key reasons for the higher margins were that its international e-commerce operations turned profitable, and there was faster growth in its high-margin cloud-computing business.”
7. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $132.87 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 96
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 31.00%
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) is a semiconductor company that operates through four segments. These are the Data Center, Client, Gaming, and Embedded segments. It offers AI accelerators, x86 microprocessors, and GPUs as both standalone devices and also incorporated into accelerated processing units, chipsets, and data center applications.
On May 5, Bank of America reiterated a Neutral rating on the stock with a $105 price target. Despite expectations of a strong quarter backed by server CPU sales and gains in desktop PC market share, AMD is set to face major challenges in the upcoming quarters. In particular, China’s restrictions on AMD’s MI308 products are anticipated to lead to a sales headwind and a decline in gross margins for the second quarter.
Wedbush’s Matt Bryson also pointed out that AMD is still gaining market share in the compute sector, both in servers and PCs. The analyst believes that while Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) is already outperforming in desktop computers, there is still potential for growth in the notebook segment in 2025. In Q4 alone, the revenue increased by 24% to a record $7.7 billion due to record quarterly data center and client segment revenue.
6. Teck Resources Ltd. (NYSE:TECK)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $40.19 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 66
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 39.07%
Teck Resources Ltd. (NYSE:TECK) researches, explores, develops, processes, smelts, refines, and reclaims mineral properties in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. The company operates through the Copper and Zinc segments. It offers copper, zinc, and lead concentrates, as well as refined zinc, lead, and silver. In addition, it explores for gold.
In Q1 2025, the company’s Copper segment achieved a 90% increase year-over-year in gross profit before depreciation and amortization, and reached $704 million. This was driven by higher copper prices and increased copper sales volumes, along with increased byproduct revenues from molybdenum and zinc. Copper production increased by 7% to 106,000 tons due to improved grades and mill throughput at Highland Valley and Carmen de Andacollo.
Teck Resources Ltd. (NYSE:TECK) now anticipates growth in its copper production with improving margins throughout 2025. The company projects full-year copper production to be between 490,000 to 565,000 tons, which would be up from 446,000 tons in 2024. This will be driven by the ongoing ramp-up of QB and improved performance at Highland Valley. On April 28, Benchmark maintained its Buy rating on the stock with a $55 price target.
5. NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $52.73 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 223
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 40.49%
NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) is a computing infrastructure company that offers graphics and compute & networking solutions. It sells its products to various parties such as OEMs, original device manufacturers, system integrators & distributors, independent software vendors, cloud service providers, and consumer internet companies.
On May 5, Piper Sandler kept its Overweight rating and $150 price target on NVIDIA due to its long-term growth potential. However, the firm warned that the company could lose up to 6.45% of its important data-center revenue if companies cut back on spending. This could mean about $9.8 billion in lost revenue if capital expenditures and demand from China decrease.
CEO Jensen Huang also stated that the Chinese AI market could reach $50 billion in a few years, and not being able to compete is a ‘tremendous loss’ for NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA). In FY2025, NVIDIA made $115.2 billion in data center revenue alone, which was more than double year-over-year. This was driven by its Blackwell and Hopper 200 products. The overall revenue totaled $130.5 billion for the year, which was up 114%.
Guinness Global Innovators is highly bullish on NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) due to its dominant AI chip market position. It stated the following in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“For a second year running, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) was the Fund’s top performing stock, delivering a stellar return of +177.7% over the year. Since the beginning of last year, Nvidia’s ‘Hopper’ GPUs have been at the centre of exploding demand for chips powerful and efficient enough to facilitate the energy intensive requirements of AI processes within datacentres. Initially possessing over 95% of market share in these types of chips, Nvidia have been quick to entrench their position as the technological leader in the space, launching the successor to the current ‘Hopper’ GPU in March, Blackwell, inhibiting the likes of AMD and Intel making meaningful inroads in taking share of the fast-growing market. Compared to the previous iteration (Hopper) which is continuing to fuel Nvidia’s extreme revenue growth, the Blackwell chip is twice as powerful for training AI models and has 5 times the capability when it comes to “inference” (the speed at which AI models respond to queries). Throughout the year, Nvidia’s financial performance has remained resilient. Quarterly revenues hit $35.1 billion in their most recent quarter, beating consensus expectations by 6% and representing a +94% year-over-year increase. Additionally, Nvidia’s data centre segment, driven by the Hopper (H100) chip, grew fivefold over the past year, underscoring the sustained demand for advanced AI infrastructure. The H100 chip, priced at around $40,000, continues to see significant adoption due to its ability to enhance AI model training efficiency while lowering overall costs. This growth is expected to continue as companies invest in upgrading existing data centres and building new ones, with Nvidia well-positioned to capture a significant share of the estimated $2 trillion market opportunity over the next five years. There have been some concerns over Blackwell production delays causing share price volatility however, Nvidia has recovered swiftly, driven by positive earnings results through the year and assurances from management regarding future supply. Additionally, the release of the H200 chip promises to extend Nvidia’s technological leadership, ensuring continued momentum into 2025. While Nvidia’s valuation remains a topic of debate, the stock is not at a significant premium to history, and it still appears reasonable given its dominant market position, innovative prowess, and exposure to long-term secular growth trends in AI, cloud computing, and data infrastructure. As a result, Nvidia remains well-positioned to deliver sustained outperformance over the long term, making it a cornerstone of growth-oriented portfolios.”
4. Diamondback Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:FANG)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $13.75 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 53
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 42.32%
Diamondback Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:FANG) acquires, develops, explores, and exploits unconventional, onshore oil and natural gas reserves in the Permian Basin in West Texas. It develops the Spraberry and Wolfcamp formations of the Midland basin and the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring formations of the Delaware basin, which are part of the Permian Basin.
Diamondback’s Oil and Natural Gas Sales segment generated $3.657 billion in Q1 2025 revenue, which was up from the $2.101 billion in the same quarter last year. This was attributed to increased average realized prices for oil, which stood at $70.95 per barrel. There was also a higher average daily oil production of 475.9 MBO/d, which was a year-over-year jump from the 273.3 MBO/d in Q1 2024.
The company’s updated full-year 2025 guidance projects oil production to be in the range of 480 to 495 MBO/d (857 to 900 MBOE/d). Diamondback Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:FANG) also plans to drill 385 to 435 gross wells and complete 475 to 550 gross wells with an average lateral length of ~11,500 feet. On May 6, Evercore ISI resumed coverage on Diamondback by assigning an Outperform rating and setting a price target of $165 per share.
3. Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $8.92 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 49
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 49.72%
Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL) provides products and services to the energy industry worldwide. It operates in two segments: Completion & Production and Drilling & Evaluation. It also provides cloud-based digital services and AI solutions on an open architecture for subsurface insights, integrated well construction, and reservoir & production management, among other applications.
The company’s International markets segment generated $3.2 billion in Q1 2025 revenue, when the quarter’s total revenue stood at $5.4 billion. This was a slight 2% year-over-year decrease due to lower activity in Mexico, but the underlying business excluding Mexico remained strong as international revenues grew by mid-single digits. Halliburton also secured contract awards in this segment, extending through 2026 and beyond, particularly with Shell in Brazil, Suriname, and West Africa.
On May 5, Citigroup adjusted the price target on Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL) to $29 from $31, while maintaining a buy rating on the stock. While there’s increased uncertainty in the overall international outlook due to the dynamic trade environment and OPEC production, Halliburton anticipates its year-over-year international revenue to be flat to slightly down for the remainder of 2025.
2. First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $12.34 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 65
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 54.68%
First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) is a solar technology company that provides PV (photovoltaic) solar energy solutions. It manufactures and sells PV solar modules with a thin film semiconductor technology that provides a lower-carbon alternative to conventional crystalline silicon PV solar modules. It also manufactures and sells cadmium telluride solar modules that convert sunlight into electricity.
On April 30, TD Cowen maintained a Buy rating on the stock while lowering the price target to $200 from $275. The analysts made this revision due to the tariff risks, IRA policy uncertainty, and potential production halts in Asia, which have resulted in a lowered 2025 guidance. However, they also noted the company’s strong 43.6% gross margin and stable backlog prices.
The company also plans to expand US production to 14 GW by 2026. First Solar Inc.’s (NASDAQ:FSLR) Module Sales segment recorded 2.9 GW of module sales in Q1 2025, which aligned with the company’s previous forecast. This contributed to net sales of $0.8 billion, which was a sequential decrease due to an anticipated seasonal reduction in volume.
1. ChampionX Corp. (NASDAQ:CHX)
Caxton Associates’ Stake: $8.19 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 48
Average Upside Potential as of May 7: 64.30%
ChampionX Corp. (NASDAQ:CHX) provides chemistry solutions, artificial lift systems, and engineered equipment and technologies to oil & gas companies worldwide. It operates in four segments: Production Chemical Technologies, Production & Automation Technologies, Drilling Technologies, and Reservoir Chemical Technologies.
ChampionX’s Production Chemical Technologies segment generated $523.4 million in Q1 2025 revenue, which was a sequential drop of 8% due to typical seasonal lower international sales volumes. Despite this dip, the segment achieved an operating profit of $82.2 million and an adjusted EBITDA of $109.1 million. The company has already strengthened its arsenal of oil & gas equipment by acquiring RMSpumptools Limited.
With the acquisition, ChampionX Corp. (NASDAQ:CHX) gains access to advanced mechanical and electrical solutions for artificial lift applications. This acquisition should open up growth opportunities for the company in the international markets of the Middle East and Latin America. The company has also started a new team focused on unconventional water applications in North America and is re-entering the US Land market with its H2S scavenger program.
While we acknowledge the growth potential of ChampionX Corp. (NASDAQ:CHX), 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 CHX but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
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