We recently published a list of the 10 Best Stock Picks of Billionaire Leon Cooperman in 2024. Since Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) ranks 2nd on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
Billionaire Leon Cooperman predicted in April that the US is headed for a financial crisis. Cooperman said that the Federal Reserve kept interest rates near zero, but raised them dramatically in a period of 12 months. The Omega Family Office chairman and CEO expects “one or two” rate cuts this year. He emphasized that the market remains overvalued.
In February last year, the billionaire said that the market was headed for a recession, and noted that the S&P 500 high of about 4,800 recorded in 2022 could “stand for some time.” In July 2022, while talking to Bloomberg, Cooperman said that he was “shocked” that interest rates were so low.
“I am of the view that equities are the best house in the financial asset in the neighborhood, but I don’t like the neighborhood, for a lot of reasons.”
Cooperman in the Bloomberg interview in 2022 had categorically said that sooner or later the strong dollar, prices of oil and the Fed would “lead us into a recession.” He went on to add that recession would be a “2023 event” and predicted that the market would bottom somewhere near 35% to 45% below its peak of 4800.
The billionaire had said that he would be “very surprised” if we were to see another bull market anytime soon, given his view that we’ve had one of the biggest bull runs driven by FAANG, SPACs and speculation. The AI revolution that started in 2023 was indeed a shocker for Cooperman as his recession predictions were proven wrong.
For this article we scanned billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Q1 portfolio and picked 10 stocks with the highest number of hedge fund investors. 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).
Pixabay/Public Domain
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 166
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) accounts for about 4% of the total Q1 portfolio of Leon Cooperman. Omega Advisors has been holding stakes in the search engine company since 2015 (except for Q2 2020 when the fund totally dumped Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), only to buy it again in the following quarter). Omega Advisors owns a $98 million stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) as of the end of the March quarter.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) bulls believe the company is just getting started with AI product launches. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is indeed in a strong position to develop an AI ecosystem around its products. For example, demos have shown that Gemini app will help people perform daily personal tasks like note taking, appointments, writing, etc. These features could easily be integrate with other Google apps. Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) app is to urge users to sign up for ‘Google One AI Premium’ plan, which has a $19.99 price tag. Google saw advertising revenue accelerate in Q1 2024, boosted by YouTube in particular growing by almost 21% last quarter. Analysts also believe Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in a strong position to offset any headwinds or lost market share in Google search with YouTube, which saw its ads revenue reach $8.1 billion in the first quarter, a 21% growth. Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) net income in the period came in at $23.66 billion, up 57%, or $1.89 per share.
Here is what Bronte Capital said about Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q1 2024 investor letter:
“Our biggest position is Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the holding company for Google. It is currently about 12 percent of funds under management. This has been a large position for over ten years.
We bought a large position in Google in October 20104, and the stock immediately dropped 11 percent.
That was an astonishingly good purchase and if we had held it all from October 2010 until the end of this month the gain would have been about 1300 percent.
Alas we did not hold it all. We have trimmed it many times – and it is now merely a large position. (We have lived to regret every single trim…)..” (Click here to read the full text)
Overall, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) ranks 2nd on Insider Monkey’s list titled 10 Best Stock Picks of Billionaire Leon Cooperman in 2024. While we acknowledge the potential of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), 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 Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion “Opportunity” for NVIDIA and Jim Cramer is Recommending These Stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
