We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Growth Stocks To Buy According To George Soros. In this article, we will look at where Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) ranks among the 10 best growth stocks to buy according to George Soros.
The Man Who Broke the Bank of England
George Soros, the owner of Soros Fund Management, is known as one of the most controversial investors in the history of investing. The now 94-year-old, “broke the Bank of England” after he reportedly made $1 billion from shorting the British pound in 1992. As of September 19, Soros has a net worth of $7.2 billion. He managed client money in New York from 1969 to 2011.
Soros Fund Management was founded in 1970 and manages almost $28 billion in net assets at the moment. The fund is the principal asset manager for Soros’ philanthropic venture, the Open Society Foundations (OSF). So far he has given away more than $32 billion of his fortune to the OSF. Last year, Soros handed over the fund to his eldest son, Alexander Soros, who now aims to take his philanthropic endeavors to another level.
George Soros’ Investment Philosophy
Soros is known for being ahead of the market. Historically, he has made financial decisions after gauging market feedback and predicting market activities, that have returned or saved him millions, if not billions. This is what he calls the “reflexivity” theory. By applying this theory to finance and investments, Soros values assets based on market feedback, predicts market bubbles, and exploits market opportunities. A recent example of this was when Soros pulled out a staggering $73 million from two major technology players right before the tech downturn in mid-July.
Soros also uses another method, which he calls the Soros’ Method, to forecast events in the financial markets using current data. He then tests his theories on small investments and if the theory seems to be working out, he expands his position or size of his investment. This, however, does not mean that Soros has never failed or encountered risk during his time as an investor. He has made multiple expensive decisions from which he learned lessons and has even quoted them in his books. Here is an excerpt of what he said in his book, Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve:
“The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposition position. I assume that markets are always wrong. Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis. It does not follow that one should always go against the prevailing trend. On the contrary, most of the time the trend prevails; only occasionally are the errors corrected. It is only on those occasions that one should go against the trend. This line of reasoning leads me to look for the flaw in every investment thesis. … I am ahead of the curve. I watch out for telltale signs that a trend may be exhausted. Then I disengage from the herd and look for a different investment thesis. Or, if I think the trend has been carried to excess, I may probe going against it. Most of the time we are punished if we go against the trend. Only at an inflection point are we rewarded.”
One can say that Soros’ degree in philosophy helped him carve his way into the financial markets. Now that we have studied Soros’ investment philosophy, let’s take a look at the 10 best growth stocks according to George Soros.
Our Methodology
To come up with the 10 best growth stocks according to George Soros, we examined his 13F portfolio and selected his top 10 growth stock picks, as of Q2 2024.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Soros Fund Management Stake Value: $166.02 Million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 216
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is one of the best growth stocks to buy according to Soros. The company owns a range of products, including Google Search, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Cloud, and Wyamo. The technology giant is well-positioned to exploit the next wave of artificial intelligence and innovation, making it a solid investment.
Google DeepMind, the company’s research lab is relentlessly working to improve the Gemini experience and is also actively involved in developing AI hardware, and launched its NVIDIA chip rival in May. Moreover, the latest version of Gemini has accelerated performance across text, audio, video, and code.
While Google’s tensor processing units (TPU) only account for almost 20% of the market, its advancements promise higher market shares. Moreover, its six-generation chips are 67% more energy efficient compared to the previous generation of processors. The new chip will be made available to Google Cloud users by the end of 2024.
Overall, the company’s new AI models and algorithms are 100 times more efficient compared to 18 months ago. Additionally, over 60% of generative AI startups and 90% of generative AI unicorns are customers of the Google Cloud. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) expects to log $100 billion in revenue run rate from YouTube Ads and Google Cloud by the end of 2024. In addition to that, in the second quarter, cloud revenue increased by 28.8% and overall revenue increased by 13.59%.
Analysts are bullish on GOOGL and their 12-month median price target of $205 points to a 26% upside from current levels. Overall, 216 investors held stakes worth $35.31 billion in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Of those, Fisher Asset Management was the highest stakeholder with a position of $8.86 billion.
Patient Capital Management mentioned Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q2 2024 investor letter“
“Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) was a top contributor in the second quarter, finally catching up to its peers in the Magnificent 7. The company gained 20.8% in the period following strong first quarter earnings, a new $70B repurchase program (3% of shares outstanding) and the initiation of a cash dividend ($0.20 per share; 0.42% yield). We continue to believe the market underappreciates Google’s exposure to AI with its Gemini model being integrated into search results, YouTube advertising and its cloud offering. We continue to think that the cloud players will be the AI winners in the long-term, with Google being well positioned to take advantage. While the company trades at 24x 2024 earnings, if you remove the money-losing and under-earning businesses, you realize that you are paying below a market multiple for the core Google business. We do not believe there are many other AI winners trading at such an attractive multiple.”
Overall GOOGL ranks 2nd on our list of the best growth stocks to buy according to George Soros. While we acknowledge the potential of GOOGL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than GOOGL 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 was originally published on Insider Monkey.
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