Julian Robertson Likes Biotech, Talks Up Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) & Gilead (GILD)

Legendary investor Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management, sees tremendous upside in biotech stocks right now. The billionaire told CNBC in a recent interview that fears of what could befall the sector under a Clinton presidency are overdone.

“Biotech stocks, the Celgenes and those type of companies are just selling at very, very low earnings multiples now… [There’s] great fear that Mrs. Clinton is going to put these people out of business,” he said. “I don’t think she is that stupid. I mean, the country is begging for the new discoveries, which these biotech… companies are uncovering,” Robertson went on. “And I do some work in cancer research. And the progress there is just mind boggling. And I think it’s due to, in large part, to these powerful biotech ideas, and people, and companies.”

Roberston added that several biotechs have sold off a bit this year and that a lot of them have promise. The iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (ETF) (NASDAQ:IBB) has lost more than 22.75% year-to-date, and about 9.75% in October. Among the funds long the iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (ETF) (NASDAQ:IBB) on June 30 was Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors, which held 213,729 shares of the ETF.

Over the course of Robertson’s CNBC interview, he went into detail on some of the other stocks that he likes. We’ll analyze those comments and stocks in this article.

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Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD)

Robertson went on to talk about Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD), in which Tiger Management held 38,511 shares valued at $3.2 million as of June 30. Taking into account the $21 billion in cash the company had as of May 2016, Robertson commented, “it’s amazing that they have not done more with their huge wads of cash.” The investor went on to declare that he has “a little bit given up on them, because they haven’t put all this cash to work… We think there are a lot of really good acquisitions available; and they should be taking advantage of this particular situation now that exists in the biotech area.”

As of September 30, Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) shares were held by Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management (444,529 shares) and Bernard Selz’s Selz Capital (190,000 shares).

 

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Next up was Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), which Robertson had some interesting comments about in regards to the company’s (and other tech companies’) efforts in the autonomous car arena.

“I’m going to refrain from criticizing Apple too much. I mean, that’s been a pretty great company…. I’m not in it now, but I think in the long pull that’s going to be… a great company. And I’ve got a lot of respect for them. I’ve got less respect for our politicians, for instance, who are not worried or apparently don’t even consider the fact that Apple and a lot of the other good technology companies are going to create an automatic car. Think of the jobs that’s going to cause to be gone,” he stated.

It’s believed that the eventual unleashing of fully autonomous vehicles will cost millions of jobs related to driving, though it’s unclear what Robertson expects politicians to be doing about it at present.

Hedge funds in our database with long positions in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) on September 30 included Charles Paquelet’s Skylands Capital (365,165 shares) and Fisher Asset Management (11.37 million shares).

We’ll check out Julian Robertson’s thoughts on two other major stocks on the next page.