We recently compiled a list of the Billionaire Israel Englander’s Top 10 Stock Picks Heading Into 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) stands against the other stock picks.
Israel Englander has always inspired the investment world by founding and managing the second-most profitable hedge fund in history. The Brooklyn-born billionaire investor began his career on Wall Street in 1970. After gaining valuable experience in trading and investment management, he founded Millennium Management in 1989.
Millennium Management has become one of the world’s largest and most successful hedge funds, managing $210 billion in 13F securities as of Q3 2024. Innovative investment strategies and a focus on risk management are the tenets that have propelled the hedge fund to tremendous success. Since its inception, Englander’s hedge fund has averaged 14% in annual returns, solidifying its position in the highly competitive hedge fund landscape. The hedge fund has also racked up over $56 billion in cumulative profits for investors since its inception.
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Millennium Management had its best year in 2000, when the dot-com bust started, and the S&P 500 was down 10%. Thanks to its multi-strategy approach, it returned 35%, which consistently produces positive returns. As the CEO, Englander only had one down year, a 3% decline at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. The impressive performance stems from the billionaire investor focusing on unique investment strategies emphasizing diversification and risk management. Likewise, Englander advocates for a multi-strategy approach that makes it easy to capitalize on various market opportunities.
Millennium Management’s diversification strategy was highlighted when they sold tech stocks to invest in an index fund, emphasizing long-term growth and risk mitigation. Israel Englander remains focused on expanding the firm and leveraging technology to stay competitive.
In 2023, Israel Englander topped Bloomberg’s list of highest-earning hedge fund managers with $2.8 billion in net earnings. Millennium Management earned $600 million from commodities last year but lagged behind Citadel’s $8 billion in 2022. Bloomberg cited sources saying Millennium’s struggles are due to Englander’s tight control. Financial Times reported Millennium manages $60 billion in assets, employs 5,400 people, and has 17 offices. The fund returned 8.3% in 2023, 12.5% in 2022, 13.6% in 2021, and 25.9% in 2020.
Millennium Management was one of the hedge funds that benefited from the overall stock market rally, with the S&P 500 gaining 24% in 2024 due to optimism around artificial intelligence and interest rate cuts. The hedge fund also benefited from its exposure to many of the ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks, which were behind much of the actions in 2024.
After two straight years of annual gains, the focus in the equity markets is on stocks that can maintain the upward momentum in 2025. Billionaire Israel Englander’s top stock picks are well poised to benefit from a strong US economy. While the billionaire investor’s portfolio consists of tech stocks, it also consists of investment plays in healthcare, industrials and materials sectors. With that, let’s take a look at some of his top stock picks.
Our Methodology
We analyzed Millennium Management’s portfolio to make a list of billionaire Israel Englander’s top 10 stock picks heading into 2025. We then settled on Englander’s top ten holdings and analyzed them to determine why they stand out in generating long-term value. We then ranked these companies in ascending order based on the hedge fund’s stake value.
At Insider Monkey, we are obsessed with 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).
An array of pharmaceutical pills with the company’s logo on the bottle.
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY)
Millennium Management’s Stake Value: $877.27 Million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 106
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) is a healthcare company that discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It’s been a strong winner over the past few years due to the strong demand for diabetes and weight loss drugs. The stock was up by about 26% in 2024, emerging as one of billionaire Israel Englander’s top stock picks.
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) has experienced a remarkable surge, fueled by high demand for their medications, Mounjaro and Zepbound. Zepbound is approved to help obese or overweight adults with at least one weight-related condition lose weight. Mounjaro has also been approved to help adult patients with type 2 diabetes improve their blood glucose levels.
Wall Street is incredibly excited about the company’s long-term prospects as it is working on a GLP-1 weight loss pill. Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) anticipates having information to share on a late-stage trial for orforglipron, an oral GLP-1 drug that has shown promise by April 2025. The once-daily pill has already posted solid results in helping overweight or obese people lose up to 14.7% of their body weight over a 36-week period.
In addition to weight loss pills, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) also boasts of a robust and diverse pipeline of drugs. It sells a number of lucrative drugs that are used to treat conditions like plaque psoriasis and cancer. The FDA also approved the company’s eczema and Alzheimer’s disease treatments this year.
Overall LLY ranks 5th on our list of Billionaire Israel Englander’s top stock picks heading into 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of LLY as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued AI stock that is more promising than the ones mentioned on our list 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 at Insider Monkey.
