In this article, we discuss the top 5 stock picks of billionaire Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates 13F portfolio. If you want to see more stocks in this selection, check out Billionaire Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates 13F Portfolio: Top 10 Stock Picks.
5. Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 64
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates’ Holdings: $566,509,000
Percentage of Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates’ Portfolio: 2.86%
Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) is a Washington-based membership-only big box retailer.
Simeon Gutman at Morgan Stanley believes that the company could have a special 2023 as it can address the challenges related to excess inventory. Furthermore, Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) is expected to experience solid unit growth and market share gain during the next year. The analyst made these comments in a note issued to investors on October 28 following meetings with CFO Richard Galanti and other members of the leadership team at the Costco headquarters. Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) is experiencing positive momentum as comparable sales grew by 6% YoY in October 2022. Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) is another stock in Mr. Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates’ portfolio that has been able to outperform the S&P 500 Index since the start of 2022.
Cooper Investors shared its stance on Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) in its Q3 2022 investor letter. Here’s what the firm said:
“The US economy continues to run hot – the labour market is extremely tight and a number of executives we spoke to described their challenges in retaining staff and preventing competitors from poaching talent. Industrial companies in particular continue to see record backlogs, with the easing of logistics and supply chain constraints only just starting to have an impact on deliveries and lead times.
In terms of inflationary pressures, the vast majority of our holdings have been able to leverage strong market positions and stakeholder relationships to push pricing through in 2022 such that minimal impact to earnings has occurred. Clearly this is not a lever than can be pulled indefinitely but the more experienced management teams have kept some of their powder dry. Our meeting with management at Costco in Seattle was memorable for several reasons but one was their latent ability to increase member pricing which they have not done in over 5 years (and thus likely to do in 2023)…
…To conclude we’ll return to our meeting with Costco mentioned earlier. The business quality is no secret after decades of incredible execution, but the meeting gave us renewed conviction around Value Latencies in terms of the runway for growth, the focus on enhancing customer value, Costco’s vast buying power (it purchases 30% of the world’s jumbo cashews as one example) and management’s feral focus on the business model and cost discipline.”
