Tiger Cub Lee Ainslie’s Top Stock Picks

Maverick Capital Ltd. is an investment advisor and private investment fund that uses a Long/short approach to invest in equity products. The firm was founded in 1993 by Lee Ainslie.

Maverick Capital’s portfolio is mainly invested in consumer discretionary and information technology stocks, each of which accounts for approximately a quarter of the fund’s holdings. For the quarter ended on September, the fund made major purchases in some of its stocks, including Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM), Sabre Corp (NASDAQ:SABR), The Priceline Group Inc. (NASDAQ:PCLN) and Universal Health Services Inc. (NYSE:UHS).

The smart money sentiment is an important metric that can be used to assess the long-term profitability of a stock. While there are thousands of stocks trading daily on the market, taking a look at what hedge funds think about certain companies can narrow down the search significantly. At Insider Monkey, we track more than 700 hedge funds, whose 13F filings we analyze as part of our small-cap strategy. Our research has shown that imitating a portfolio that includes the 15 most popular small-cap stocks among hedge funds can outperform the market by as much as 95 basis points per month on average (see more details here).

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Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) stock has advanced 3% this year so far. However, it offers healthy dividend yield of 3.73%. The stock accounted for 8.58% of Maverick Capital’s portfolio. For the quarter ended on 30^th September, 2016, the investment fund boosted its holding of the stock by 16% to  21.38 million shares. The fund’s holding amounted to $724 million. Of the hedge funds in our database, 94 funds currently hold $5.66 billion worth of Pfizer shares in their portfolio at the end of the June quarter, which equals to 2.70% of the outstanding shares. Pfizer announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Texas Health and Human Services Commissions for revealing the confidential drug pricing information illegally.

Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM) stock gained 3% in this year so far. Maverick Capital boosted its holding of the stock by 23% during the quarter ended on 30^th September, 2016. The fund held $702 million worth of Philip Morris International stock at the end of the quarter, forming 8.32% of its portfolio. Maverick Capital had 7.22 million shares of the company in its portfolio at the end of the period. Among the funds we track, 47 funds held $4.61 billion worth of  Philip Morris International’s stock in aggregate at the end of June, having amassed 2.90% of its outstanding stock. The company stock recently received rating upgrade from CLSA. Its new rating is Buy and the target price for the stock has been set at $105 per share.