We recently published a list of Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s Top 10 Stocks Picks with Huge Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX) stands against Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s other top stock picks with huge upside potential.
Wall Street is overflowing with data. If companies are not releasing their earnings, economic data flows almost daily. This abundance of data can be overwhelming, making it easy to miss important signals. That’s why investors monitor billionaires who’ve made and continue to make their fortunes on Wall Street. The list of these billionaires is long, but a few, such as Warren Buffett and Stanley Druckenmiller, stand out.
Druckenmiller is a former Soros protégé who, after 12 years at Soros Fund Management, opted to exit and focus fully on his own hedge fund, Duquesne Capital, in 2000. He later transitioned this outfit into a family office – Duquesne Family Office – in 2010. Over the past eight quarters (up to Q4 2024), the family office has consistently outperformed the S&P 500. The top 20 holdings weighted have returned 81.63% in three years (cumulatively) and 22.01% (annualized).
READ ALSO: Top 10 Growth Stocks in David Tepper’s Portfolio and Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Top 13 Growth Stock Picks.
This billionaire is widely respected across Wall Street for many things, but most of all, his market acumen, integrity, and agility. One should recall that he was part of the Soros Fund Management crew that shorted the British pound in the early 1990s to the point of almost breaking the Bank of England. His genius in the market has been noticed by many. Ken Langone, another billionaire, described Druckenmiller as the best investor he’s ever known.
Druckenmiller is also influential. The Financial Times reports that the veteran investor could significantly influence the direction of the current US government economic policies. Scott Bessent, the current Treasury secretary, and Kevin Warsh, a possible successor to Jerome Powell at the Fed, are Druckenmiller’s proteges. According to the FT, these three “have a great relationship”, which implies that Druckenmiller has a direct line to the country’s most crucial economic thinkers.
Druckenmiller’s investing strategy is to chase value over hype. In other words, the 71-year-old billionaire focuses on investing in undervalued stocks rather than jumping on trendy ones. Simply put, he prefers solid opportunities over flashy ones. Just recently, he exited two of the most high-profile artificial intelligence (AI) stocks. This is an eye-brow-raising move, but if the billionaire’s genius is anything to go by, there must be value he is chasing.
Our Methodology
To compile this list, we reviewed the Duquesne Family Office’s SEC Q4 2024 13F filings. We picked 10 stocks that have the highest upside potential from their current levels based on average analyst price targets (as of April 11). Finally, we organized the stocks in ascending order based on their highest analyst upside potential while also outlining hedge fund sentiment regarding these stocks as of Q4 2024.
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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Stanley Druckenmiller of Duquesne Capital
Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX)
Upside Potential as of April 11: 342.69%
Duquesne Capital’s Stake Value: $7.06 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 50
Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX) develops vaccines to protect people from serious bacterial infections. It creates advanced vaccines using modern techniques to improve effectiveness, and their main products are vaccines for preventing pneumococcal diseases, such as VAX-31 and VAX-24. The firm’s end markets are global, with a focus on regions where these infections pose significant health risks.
In Q4 2024, Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX) announced positive topline results from its Phase 1/2 study of VAX-31 in 1,015 healthy adults aged 50 and older. The vaccine was well tolerated and demonstrated a safety profile similar to Prevnar 20® with robust immune responses for all 31 serotypes. For all 11 incremental serotypes unique to VAX-31, all three doses met the superiority criteria. At the VAX-31 high dose, average immune responses were greater for 18 of 20 serotypes compared to Prevnar 20®, with seven achieving statistically higher immune responses.
The company has received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the FDA for VAX-31 for the prevention of invasive pneumococcal disease in adults. This designation provides the firm with access to all elements of the FDA’s Fast Track program and support for an efficient drug development process. It remains on track to initiate the VAX-31 adult Phase 3 pivotal, non-inferiority study by mid-2025, with topline data expected in 2026.
Overall, PCVX ranks 1st on our list of Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s top stock picks with huge upside potential. While we acknowledge the potential of PCVX as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PCVX but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
