This Billion Dollar British Hedge Fund’s Eclectic Mix of Top Stock Picks

#3 Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS)

 – Shares held (as of September 30): 449,174
– Total Value (as of September 30): $78.05 million

Next up on the list is Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS). Odey trimmed its Goldman Sachs position by 52%, but still had 449,174 shares at the end of September, good for 6.18% of the funds’ equity portfolio. Although other less illustrious banks may be due for long secular declines as various fintech startups perform select banking functions better, Goldman Sachs’ position as the leading investment bank is still secure. Because Goldman has the best and brightest, Fortune 500 and fast growing medium-sized companies will always want to do business with it, no matter what others offer. Goldman isn’t standing still in the technology front either, with the company recently announcing that it’s created its own cryptocurrency to facilitate the settlement of bonds, stocks, and other assets. If Goldman can harness blockchain’s potential, Goldman can be a tech company and the world’s leading investment bank. Goldman shares trade at a reasonable 9.7 forward P/E and pay out a dividend with a yield of 1.4%.

#2 Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)

 – Shares held (as of September 30): 197,900
– Total Value (as of September 30): $101.3 million

As a serial innovator, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has certainly been the reason for secular declines in disparate industries. Because of Amazon’s efforts, more people are reading e-books than ever before. Because of Amazon’s competitive prices and almost unlimited selection, goliaths such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) are having to jump head-first into e-commerce in order to please their investors. Given Amazon’s fast growing cloud infrastructure-as-a-service division, giants such as International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) are struggling to grow their top lines. Given CEO Jeff Bezos’ long term thinking, more industries will likely experience similar levels of disruption as Amazon marches forward on its mission to become the ‘everything’ store. Shares of Amazon are up by 115% year-to-date.

#1 D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE:DHI)

 – Shares held (as of September 30): 3.56 million
– Total Value (as of September 30): $104.4 million

Given the strong U.S economy and optimistic sentiment across the home building industry, it’s not surprising that D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE:DHI) is Odey’s largest equity position. D. R. Horton reported strong fourth-quarter earnings, with EPS of $0.64 on revenue of $3.09 billion, exceeding analyst estimates by $0.02 per share and $50 million, respectively. Net sales orders jumped by 19% year-over-year to 8,477 homes while the company’s backlog increased by 8% to 10,663 homes. D. R. Horton’s growth won’t end anytime soon, as analysts expect the company to grow its EPS by an average of 17.96% per year for the next five years.

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