Billionaire Ray Dalio’s 5 New Stock Picks

3. AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 37    

AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN) is a United Kingdom-based biopharmaceutical company. It is ranked third on our list of 10 new stocks in the portfolio of billionaire Ray Dalio. According to the latest filings, Bridgewater Associates owned 91,336 shares in the firm at the end of the second quarter of 2021 worth $5.4 million. 

On September 17, investment advisory Morgan Stanley maintained an Overweight rating on AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN) stock and raised the price target to GBP10,000 from GBP9,800. Mark Purcell, an analyst at the firm, issued the ratings update. 

At the end of the second quarter of 2021, 37 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $2.7 billion in AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN), up from 34 in the previous quarter worth $2.6 billion.

In its Q4 2020 investor letter, Baron Health Care Fund, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“AstraZeneca PLC is a multinational pharmaceutical company developing drugs across multiple therapeutic areas such as oncology and respiratory diseases. Shares were impacted by news of AstraZeneca’s joint development with Oxford University of a viral-based COVID-19 vaccine. Given a mixed data set due to an unforeseen error in dosing that occurred in the Brazilian market, the vaccine timelines slipped, hurting share performance. Our investment thesis on AstraZeneca is not dependent on COVID-19 but rather its best-in-class large-cap growth profile, and we retain conviction.”