Many sports fans may know David Tepper as the owner of the NFL's Carolina Panthers. But in the investing world, Tepper is considered a legend. Between 1993 and 2019, Tepper's fund, Appaloosa Management, generated compound annual returns of more than 25% per year, net of all fees, according to Institutional Investor. Today, Tepper still runs Appaloosa but as a family office, and he's still arguably one of the most influential investors in the market. In the first quarter of 2025, filings show that Appaloosa more than halved its position in the artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA), while loading up on a market-beating transportation stock instead.
Reading the tea leaves on Nvidia
Like many stocks in 2025, Nvidia has had an up-and-down year. It sold off intensely but then rebounded and is currently down only 2% for the year. Earlier in 2025, there were many concerning events that could have caused investors to press the sell button.
Image source: Getty Images.
The first occurred after China's DeepSeek created an artificial intelligence chatbot rivaling OpenAI's ChatGPT, supposedly at a fraction of the cost and with older Nvidia chips. Now, there's much dispute about the level of resources that went into DeepSeek but it caused investors to worry about demand for Nvidia's chips and whether or not more in the AI world could be done with less.
Then there were concerns about export restrictions and how that might impact Nvidia's business in China. Former President Joe Biden's administration began to limit the types of chips Nvidia could sell to China, in an effort to prevent China from obtaining semiconductors it could use to build a super computer. Those restrictions ramped up and the Biden administration also tried to close loopholes by preventing Nvidia from selling certain chips to other countries that could then sell them to China. The Trump administration plans to remove some of the Biden-era policies but also implemented its own restrictions that caused Nvidia to take a $5.5 billion charge in the first quarter of the year.
While there is still broader market uncertainty, particularly as U.S. Treasury yields surged, investors seem to have renewed faith in AI demand and Nvidia currently trades at a cheaper forward earnings multiple than earlier this year, so it's not a bad time for long-term oriented buyers to buy shares or start dollar-cost averaging again.
While selling Nvidia, Tepper and Appaloosa more than doubled their position in the ride-sharing company Uber Technologies(NYSE: UBER). Uber was one of the most highly touted start-ups, but struggled to turn a profit for many years. In 2017, the company brought on Dara Khosrowshahi, who has focused less on growth and more on improving operations.
Through a mixture of cost-cutting, price increases, exiting difficult markets like China, and a focus on growing profitable businesses like Uber Eats, Uber managed to turn its first profit in 2023. Since then, profits and revenue continued to grow and the company has also been increasing free cash flow. The stock has crushed the broader market this year and over the last five years.
Uber also has an opportunity to be a part of the autonomous vehicle wave. While the company will not build its own self-driving vehicles, it does plan to partner with companies in the autonomous space to help them reach commercialization and integrate autonomous vehicles into Uber's fleet. In a presentation made in the fourth quarter of 2024, management presented the autonomous space as more than a $1 trillion opportunity.
The company said that the path to commercialization for companies developing self-driving vehicles faces several obstacles. These include navigating the regulatory landscape, ensuring safety, and having a scalable network and platform. Uber can help on all of these fronts and has already partnered with several large autonomous companies like Waymo and WeRide. Earlier this month, Uber and WeRide announce an expansion of their partnership to roll out autonomous vehicles in 15 cities across the world.
Trading at less than 25 times forward earnings, Uber has the opportunity to continue improving profitability and free cash flow, while also potentially tapping into the massive autonomous market over time, presenting a potential new stream of revenue.
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Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
