Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA) has been one of the biggest winners of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom so far thanks to the strength of its AI chips. Customers have flocked to the company for them and related products and services, and this has helped earnings soar in the double and triple digits. As a result, Nvidia stock has roared higher, gaining 1,700% over the past five years.
Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, as an investor in Nvidia, benefited from a great deal of this performance -- until he closed out his position in the third quarter of last year. The top investor later expressed regret, even saying during a Bloomberg interview that he would consider buying the stock again at the right price. So, it's clear Druckenmiller still believes in the stock's long-term growth story.
And in the fourth quarter of last year, he made two moves that may allow him to bet on Nvidia in another way.
Image source: Getty Images.
Druckenmiller's track record
As head of Duquesne Capital Management, Druckenmiller posted an annual average return of 30% without any money-losing years -- this, over a period of 30 years until Druckenmiller closed the fund, shows a long track record of success. The billionaire now oversees $3.7 billion through the Duquesne Family Office, and though he invests across industries, tech stocks have been the most heavily weighted in recent years. Druckenmiller originally bought Nvidia shares in the second quarter of 2016, and the stock represented his third-largest holding at the end of 2023. Over that time period, the stock advanced more than 4,100%
Druckenmiller told Bloomberg his reason for selling Nvidia was that he thought "the valuation was rich." But he went on to say the move was a "mistake" and he expressed confidence about the chip maker's future and said he would even consider buying it again at a reasonable valuation.
So, it's clear the billionaire believes in the ability of Nvidia to continue scoring a win in the AI market that analysts predict will grow from $200 billion today to more than $1 trillion by the end of the decade. Druckenmiller hasn't announced any new Nvidia buys yet, but a look at his moves in the fourth quarter of last year show he's investing in two companies that could excel in lockstep with Nvidia. And these are two Nvidia customers: Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN) and Alphabet(NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL).
New positions in Amazon and Alphabet
Druckenmiller opened new positions in both of these companies in the quarter. He bought 328,400 shares of Amazon, which now represent 1.9% of his portfolio, and purchased 76,680 shares of Alphabet, representing about 0.4% in the portfolio.
Amazon and Alphabet, through their cloud businesses, offer Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) -- chips to power key AI tasks like training and inferencing -- as well as a wide variety of Nvidia products and services. And right now represents a particularly high-growth moment because these companies are rolling out Nvidia's latest Blackwell architecture across their clouds.
Nvidia said in its most recent earnings call that the major cloud service providers represent about half of the company's data center revenue. These companies are flocking to Nvidia so that they can better serve their own customers that are looking for top AI platforms on the cloud. All of this means that Nvidia's successes also may be Amazon's and Alphabet's successes.
Strong growth thanks to AI
Both of these cloud players have been reporting strong growth thanks to their investments in AI. Last year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) -- the company's cloud business -- reached a $115 billion annual revenue run rate due to its strong offering of AI products and services. And Alphabet's Google Cloud revenue jumped 30% in the latest quarter, led by AI infrastructure and generative AI solutions.
All of this means, even if Druckenmiller doesn't own Nvidia shares today, he still may benefit from the chip designer's success through his investment in Nvidia customers. Should you follow the billionaire into these top cloud stocks?
If you're interested in betting on the AI growth story, yes. Amazon and Alphabet both make great stocks to buy and hold today due to their long track record of earnings growth, their AI investments that already are bearing fruit, and the fact that they both are well positioned to roar higher as this AI story enters its next chapters.
Should you invest $1,000 in Amazon right now?
Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $765,576!*
Now, it’s worth notingStock Advisor’s total average return is890% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to173%for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you joinStock Advisor.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Adria Cimino has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
