The Investor Who Challenged Warren Buffett And Got It Right

If Stanley Druckenmiller was a bear regarding IBM, what technology stocks did he like? In the same interview with Stephanie Ruhle, Druckenmiller reiterated his admiration for Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and stated his belief that it was the most innovative company around. He was also bullish on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), but was baffled by the market’s failure to take into account the potential of its cloud computing service Amazon Web Services (AWS), as investors continued to focus on the company’s retail business. Mr. Druckenmiller was adamant that Amazon had a real gem on its hands, that could amount to as much as 50% of the company’s revenue within the following five years. Since then, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has surged by more than 55%, while Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has advanced by approximately 44%.

According to Duquesne Capital’s latest 13F filing, Druckenmiller is still betting on both of these companies. His family office currently holds 190,000 shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) valued at $128 million and 32,800 class A Shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) worth $25.5 million.

Stanley Druckenmiller also addressed his bullish views on Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) during the interview, a company that has been surrounded by controversy since Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman vowed to prove the company is nothing more than a ponzi scheme and made it his mission to bring it down. In the end, Ackman was unsuccessful, as investigations conducted by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office have recently cleared the company of all allegations. Druckenmiller confessed to having initiated his stake in Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) simply because William Stiritz, whom he sees as a hero of the investment world, had bet the ranch on it. According to his most recent filing with the SEC, Stiritz currently holds 4.78 million shares of Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), a position worth $268 million. At the time of the interview, Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Capital held 79,032 shares of Herbalife, a position that was closed shortly after. Although the stock lost roughly 22% of its value since then, it is difficult to say how much of the decline was caused by bad publicity and constant attacks from Bill Ackman and his supporters, so the jury is still out on this one.

Disclosure: None