Fisher Investments is a fee-only investment adviser that was founded by billionaire Ken Fisher in 1979. Ken Fisher followed in his father Phil’s footsteps as a renowned investor and author, as he penned a 32-and-a-half year column for Forbes magazine and has written several bestselling books. Ken Fisher currently serves as the Executive Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Fisher Investments, which has over $100 billion in assets under management. We shared Fisher Asset Management’s estimated returns in an article a year ago. Our calculations show that investors would have outperformed the S&P 500 Index by an average of 3 percentage points per year over the last 4 years by replicating Ken Fisher’s 13F holdings that have a market cap of at least $1 billion. His stock picks don’t kill the market but generated better returns than Warren Buffett (see our free report about Warren Buffett at the bottom of this page) over this period.
In an April interview on CNBC, Fisher said that it would take something major to occur which the market had not accounted for before the long-running bull market, which had stretched into a 10th year coming into 2018, came to an end. Fisher quoted fellow investing legend and billionaire Sir John Templeton, who said “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria”. Fisher believed the market was currently in the optimism phase, but still a long way from euphoria.
However, that bull run may have technically come to an end in late October, though it hasn’t widely been reported as such. More than 57% of stocks in the S&P Composite 1500 were at least 20% off their 52-week-highs at one point during October 29, the 20% figure being the definition of a bear market. If that becomes the widely accepted version of events, then we are currently enjoying a new, 2-week long bull market. Long may it reign.
Hedge funds certainly felt the sting of the stealth bear market of October, as according to data from Hedge Fund Research, hedge funds suffered their worst month in 7 years. Equity funds lost 4.7% during the month, while activist funds fared even worse, declining by 5.43%. If Fisher Investments suffered such a fate, that would equate to a lot of value being wiped out. Fisher Investment’s 13F portfolio as of September 30 contained $82.37 billion in holdings.
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Fisher does not completely heed the words his father wrote in his 1959 book Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, in which he said the best time to sell a stock was “almost never”. Fisher Investments did sell out of 70 stocks during Q3 according to its latest 13F filing with the SEC, while opening new positions in 79. However, among Fisher’s top 20 holdings are numerous positions which have held for nearly two decades or more. Fisher also loves dividend stocks, with a high percentage of his top 50 stock picks paying out dividends with annual yields of 2.8% and higher. Check out our list of Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Favorite Dividend Stocks for some of his favorites.
Below and on the following pages, we’ll count down the top 20 holdings found in the 13F portfolio of billionaire Ken Fisher’s Fisher Investments as of September 30.
20. PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ:PEP)
– Shares Owned by Fisher Asset Management (as of September 30): 6.66 million
– Value of Fisher Asset Management’s Holding (as of September 30): $744.39 million
Fisher has owned PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ:PEP) dating all the way back to the third quarter of 2001, a halcyon time for the soft drink industry before sugar and sweeteners would become public enemy #1 in the world of eating (and what a forlorn world it is without sugar). Pepsi has done plenty to grow and diversify to meet those challenges head on, and Fisher has remained along for the ride, buying another 161,821 shares in Q3.
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