Billionaire Druckenmiller’s Top Dividend Stock Picks

Stanley Druckenmiller was one of the fund managers for the Quantum Fund founded by George Soros. Ranked 128^th on Forbes’ list of the richest people with a net worth of $4.4 billion, Stanley Druckenmiller now manages funds for his family office, Duquesne Family Office LLC. The American hedge fund manager ran the $12 billion Duquesne Capital till 2010. His fund’s equity portfolio is worth $1.13 billion according to its last 13F filing, with 20% allocated to technology, finance, and healthcare sectors, respectively. Given the uncertainty around growth, interest rates and taxes, it might be a good idea to follow the smart money strategy around dividend stocks. We have thus analyzed some of the top dividend-yielding stocks from Duquesne’s 13F portfolio. We believe that these funds do not invest in stocks only for their dividend yields but also for their upside potential.

We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively the most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs.

AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) was the second-largest position in Stanley Druckenmiller’s equity portfolio at the end of September, with the fund holding 1.32 million shares worth $83.5 million. Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital Management also held a $380 million stake with 6.03 million shares, while Two Sigma Advisors amassed 2.58 million shares worth $162 million. The stock has returned some 10% over the last year and has a solid dividend yield of 4.15%, based on the dividend of $0.57 per share that the company has paid for the last four quarters. AbbVie Inc’s (NYSE:ABBV) third-quarter revenues of $6.40 billion missed expectations by $160 million, while its earnings of $1.21 per share, beat estimates by $0.01. The number of hedge funds from our database long AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) inched down to 56 from 57 during the third quarter and the value of their holdings also  by $60 million to $4.17 billion between July and September.