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Decades away from his star-making turn at George Soros' Quantum Group of Funds, high-profile investor Stanley Druckenmiller stays well active in the stock-picking game with his Duquesne Family Office investment vehicle.
As a veteran player with many successes, he continues to be followed by peers wanting to catch some of that magic. So, it's worth looking at where Duquesne has been concentrating its investment capital recently.
A winning quintet
As revealed in Duquesne's latest 13F regulatory filing, its top five stocks as of mid-November 2024 were Natera (NASDAQ: NTRA), Coupang (NYSE: CPNG), Coherent (NYSE: COHR), Woodward (NASDAQ: WWD), and Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX).
| Stock | Shares Held | Market Value | Stock Price Gain 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Natera | 3,566,850 | $453 million | 294% |
| Coupang | 11,696,092 | $287 million | 49% |
| Coherent | 2,978,530 | $265 million | 170% |
| Woodward | 1,057,715 | $181 million | 72% |
| Seagate | 1,640,369 | $180 million | 64% |
Sources: Duquesne Family Office, YCharts.
All booked at least double-digit gains across 2024. We can consider Coupang to be something of a laggard, given that it didn't eclipse the S&P 500 index's 53% rise over the year; still, a 49% increase is nothing to sneeze at.
At first blush, Druckenmiller's top five are an eclectic mix of the tech, online retail, engineering, and specialty healthcare sectors. I think there's a unifying theme here, though. To me, all are either growth stocks in the broadly accepted sense of the term, or established businesses (Woodward and Seagate) standing in front of substantial revenue opportunities.
Poised for pops, perhaps
Woodward is positioned to gain from expansion in both the aerospace and industrial sectors. The same can be said for computer storage mainstay Seagate with the explosion of resource-heavy artificial intelligence (AI).
Natera is a major player in the hot area of genetic testing, and Coupang is a determined competitor in the online retail space. Coherent has similar potential in the cutting-edge optics technology segment.
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