Kiplinger

50 Top Stocks That Billionaires Love

Do you want to invest like real billionaires do?

Most billionaires obviously have much more money to burn than the average investor. And they also have enough cash in the bank to wait things out should their stock picks turn sour.

Still, given the so-called "smart money's" resources and intimate connections with some of the companies they own, it wouldn't be a crazy idea to study the top stocks that billionaires and high-asset hedge funds are plowing their long-term capital into. Rich people often get perpetually richer for a reason.

Here are 50 top stocks of the billionaire class. In all cases, these companies represent major holdings (anywhere between 5% and 100% of the portfolio) of at least one ultra-wealthy person or a large hedge fund. In many cases, these stock picks are heavily owned by multiple high-net-worth individuals and/or are high-conviction picks by several fund managers. And while several of these stocks are popular blue chips, others fall far off the radar of most investors.

Activision Blizzard

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Market value: $34.4 billion

Billionaire investor: Philippe Laffont (Coatue Management)

Percent of holdings: 5.0%

Video games generally haven't been of much interest to hedge fund managers. Most of these professional stock pickers don't have a particularly great feel for the industry, and video game publisher stocks tend to be uncomfortably volatile anyway. Funds prefer at least some modicum of predictability.

However, tech-focused hedge fund Coatue Management, with $8.4 billion in assets under management (AUM), is confident enough in its read of the maturing video gaming business to make a big play on Activision Blizzard (ATVI, $45.06) - the company behind the popular Call of Duty series, World of Warcraft and Overwatch. As of the end of 2018, Coatue held a $420 million, 9 million-share stake in the game developer, making it one of the 10 top stocks in the portfolio at a 5% weight.

Coatue - led by billionaire founder Philippe Laffont - still is a net buyer too, even after the stock

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