Stock Picks That Billionaires Love

David Tepper, owner of the Carolina Panthers and founder of Appaloosa Management, in a blue checkered shirt

(Image credit: Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

last updated 19 August 2025

No, you can't get rich simply by copying billionaires' moves, but there's still something irresistible about following their top stock picks.

After all, the billionaires we're about to talk about have larger-than-life reputations when it comes to investing other rich people's money. Meanwhile, their resources for research, as well as their intimate connections to insiders and others, can give them unique insight into their stock picks.

Studying which stocks they're chasing with their capital can be an edifying exercise for retail investors. There's a reason the rich get richer, for one thing. But it's also helpful to see where billionaires sometimes make mistakes – at least in the short term.

No matter how successful they've been in the past, all investors are fallible. Those who've amassed multibillion-dollar personal fortunes have merely made more money being right than they've lost when getting it wrong.

Need proof? As Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett wrote in Berkshire Hathaway's 2022 annual report: "In 58 years of Berkshire management, most of my capital-allocation decisions have been no better than so-so. Our satisfactory results have been the product of about a dozen truly good decisions."

Berkshire's "satisfactory results" happen to be a stock that generated compound annual growth of almost 20% since 1965. The S&P 500 delivered compound annual growth of not quite 10% over the same span.

And so, without further ado, here are five notable top stock picks from the billionaire class.

In each case, the billionaire below initiated a substantial position or added to an existing one in the first quarter. If you're wondering why mega-cap tech and communication services stocks have been rallying so hard, well, buying pressure on the part of billionaires is at least part of the equation.

Stake values and portfolio weights are as of June 30, 2025. Data courtesy of S&P Global Market Intelligence, YCharts, WhaleWisdom, Forbes and regulatory filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, unless otherwise noted. Stocks are listed by weight in the selected billionaire investor's equity portfolio, from smallest to largest.

Nvidia

Billionaire investor: Steve Cohen (Point72)
Stake value: $1 billion
Percent of portfolio: 1.3%

Steve Cohen is probably best known for using his estimated net worth of more than $21 billion to buy the New York Mets. But he's also known for adding to positions when stocks he already likes a lot are on sale.

Perhaps that's why his family office – Point72 Asset Management based in Stanford, Connecticut – upped its stake in Nvidia (NVDA) when shares sold off sharply in Q2.

Point72, with $220.9 billion in assets under management (AUM), bought another 4.3 million shares in Nvidia over the course of the second quarter, adding to a position the firm initiated in the first quarter of 2023. With 6.4 million shares worth $1 billion as of the end of Q2, NVDA stock is Steve Cohen's fifth-largest holding.

Nvidia, of course, climbed back after the April low to become the world's first company to cross $4 trillion in market cap. And that's just what NVDA has done for investors lately. Anyone who put $1,000 into Nvidia stock 20 years ago would be thrilled with their returns today.

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D.R. Horton

Billionaire investor: Daniel Sundheim (D1 Capital Partners)
Stake value: $198.5 million
Percent of portfolio: 2.8%

Daniel Sundheim's D1 Capital Partners has made quite a name for itself during its seven short years of existence. The New York hedge fund began trading with "only" $5 billion in capital. Today, D1 boasts nearly $28 billion in AUM.

Along the way, Sundheim built an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion, according to Forbes. In a nod to his precocious success, some wags called Sundheim the LeBron James of investing.

Shareholders in D.R. Horton (DHI) surely hope Sundheim brings his scoring touch to D1's new position in the homebuilder.

The hedge fund initiated a stake of more than 1.5 million shares in DHI in Q2. Interestingly, DHI was also among the stocks Warren Buffett bought in Q2 for the Berkshire Hathaway equity portfolio. Both D1 and Berkshire each now own about 0.5% of DHI's shares outstanding.

With a value of $198.5 million as of June 30, DHI is Sundheim's 17th-largest holding.

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Salesforce

Billionaire investor: Stephen Mandel (Lone Pine Capital)
Stake value: $508 million
Percent of portfolio: 3.6%

It should come as no surprise that yet another billionaire investor bet big on yet another mega-cap tech stock in the second quarter. After all, it's not every day that a Dow stock loses about a quarter of its value through the first four-plus months of a year.

Stephen Mandel has owned Salesforce (CRM) since the end of 2022, and he added to the position in a big way in Q2. Shares in the software-as-a-service juggernaut – which traded as high as $362 a pop in late January – closed below $240 at one point during the market's spring rout.

Perhaps this is when Mandel's Greenwich, Connecticut-based Lone Pine Capital hedge fund ($19.8 billion AUM) – upped its CRM stake by nearly 8%. With 1.9 million shares worth more than $500 million as of June 30, CRM is Lone Pine's 14th-largest position.

Mandel amassed an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion by knowing when to buy the dip, so count this as encouraging news for CRM bulls.

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Microsoft

Billionaire investor: Philippe Laffont (Coatue Management)
Stake value: $1.9 billion
Percent of portfolio: 5.5%

Philippe Laffont built an estimated net worth of $6.5 billion partly by knowing how to stick with winners. Such skills were certainly on display when Laffont's Coatue Management hedge fund (AUM $69.5 billion) upped its stake in Microsoft (MSFT) by 20% in Q2.

Coatue, which has owned MSFT since the third quarter of 2021, held 3.9 million shares worth almost $2 billion as of June 30, according to regulatory filings. With a portfolio weight of 5.5%, MSFT is the New York hedge fund's fifth-largest position.

If nothing else, Laffont finds himself in good company. Not only is Microsoft one of the most popular hedge fund stocks, but it also gets the highest consensus recommendation of all 30 Dow Jones stocks.

It also doesn't hurt that MSFT has done extraordinary things for truly long-term shareholders. Indeed, anyone who put $1,000 into MSFT stock a couple of decades ago has clobbered the S&P 500 by a wide margin.

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UnitedHealth Group

Billionaire investor: David Tepper (Appaloosa)
Stake value: $764 million
Percent of portfolio: 11.9%

Warren Buffett isn't the only billionaire investor who piled into beleaguered UnitedHealth Group (UNH) when its stock spiraled in Q2.

David Tepper accumulated an estimated net worth of $21.3 billion by spotting selloffs that are way overdone. Such skills were certainly on display when his Appaloosa hedge fund (AUM $16.8 billion) made a 14-fold increase to its previously small stake in the nation's largest health insurer.

UNH stock lost as much as 45% of its value for the year to date through mid-May, hurt by rising Medicare costs, a Department of Justice investigation into its billing practices and the murder of an executive.

Appaloosa, which has owned UNH since 2017, bought another 2.3 million shares, bringing its total holdings up to 2.5 million. The stake, worth $764 million as of the end of Q2, is now the New York hedge fund's second-largest holding after Alibaba (BABA).

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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, SmartMoney, InvestorPlace, DailyFinance and other tier 1 national publications. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Consumer Reports and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among many other outlets. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about markets and macroeconomics.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade individual stocks or securities. He is eternally long the U.S equity market, primarily through tax-advantaged accounts.