Is Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) Still The Best AI Stock Pick of Billionaire Tepper?

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) ranks 5th in our list of the 10 Best AI Stocks to Buy for 2024 According to Billionaire David Tepper.

Before analyzing the stock, let's first see David Tepper's latest returns and his investing strategy for 2024.

Billionaire David Tepper of Appaloosa Management recently made headlines when his latest portfolio showed the 66-year-old owner of Carolina Panthers was piling into Chinese stocks while clearly cutting his exposure to mega-cap tech stocks which have already rewarded him heftily over the past several quarters, thanks to the AI-led rally. Tepper's bet on Chinese stocks comes at a time when many analysts are predicting a rebound of Chinese economy as the government begins to devise more rescue plans for the devastated property sector. The MSCI China index is up about 10% since the end of March.

David Tepper, who founded Appaloosa Management back in 1993, returned 20% last year, thanks to his huge stake in AI stocks. A cursory analysis of David Tepper, worth over $20 billion, shows that he was piling into AI stocks when they were just getting started. This wasn’t a fluke or a one-off success from the billionaire. Data from Bloomberg shows that Tepper has posted annualized returns of 28% for investors, before fees. In 2022, when markets were tumbling amid inflation storm and rising interest rates, Appaloosa returned 12.5%. Tepper's instincts and grip over financial markets were strong even when he was in his late 20s and 30s, raking in huge profits for Goldman Sachs, which he'd joined in 1985.

Tepper rose to fame at Goldman when his portfolio stood out in the mist of the market crash of 1987. According to The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World's Top Hedge Funds, written by Maneet Ahuja, Tepper recalled:

“Going into the crash I had set up my entire portfolio as just short—I had no long positions. I made a fortune during and after the crash,” he says with a chuckle. “It was very cool.” Unfortunately, the rest of the firm didn’t do as well. “I still got a raise but not as much as I should have.”

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Billionaire David Tepper Q1'2024 Stake Value: $399,373,520

David Tepper piled into Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) when it was just getting started. The billionaire bought 150,000 shares of Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) in the first quarter of 2023 at $216.41 per share. In the very next quarter the billionaire increased his stake in Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) to a whopping one million shares and kept the stake steady through the third quarter of 2023. However, Tepper decreased his stake in Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, ending the March quarter of this year with 442k shares of Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA).

Appaloosa might be cutting its stake in Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) but other hedge funds are continuing to pile into the stock. Insider Monkey's proprietary database of 919 hedge funds updated for the first quarter of 2024 shows that 186 hedge funds had stakes in Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) as of the end of the March quarter, up from 173 hedge funds in the previous quarter.

Aristotle Atlantic Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:

“NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) contributed to portfolio performance in the first quarter, as the company continues to see accelerating demand for its GPU semiconductors from hyperscalers and enterprises. Nvidia’s GPU semiconductors continue to be the industry-leading building blocks of the accelerated computing data-center architecture to drive AI compute and applications.”

 

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) ranks 5th on our list of Top 10 AI Stocks for 2024 According to Billionaire David Tepper.

 

If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as Microsoft but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

 

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published on Insider Monkey.