We recently published a list of Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s Top 10 Stock Picks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Coupang, Inc. (NYSE:CPNG) stands against other stock picks of Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller.
Druckenmiller on the Fed’s Actions
On November 6, billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller appeared in a podcast, In Good Company, hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. Druckenmiller shared his opinion on the easing cycle and the role of the Fed in the current economic backdrop. He shared that he is primarily keeping a close look at companies and is not seeing any signs of weakness, other than the housing market, that too because of elevated price levels. He also added that for the next 3 to 6 months, he does not expect any economic problems to overshadow the market.
Druckenmiller emphasized that the financial conditions are of more interest to him and that they have been very “loose, looser than they were when the Fed actually started tightening.” He is also particularly interested to see if the market is currently in the “70s rally since 2021” when the inflationary period started, expressing his concerns over inflation moving forward. In addition to inflationary concerns, Druckenmiller is also worried that the Fed had declared victory a tad bit early, lacking confidence in the current market backdrop.
He believes that with a 50 basis point cut, roaring equities, and no material weakness, the market may turn up again. Druckenmiller added that the Fed is “obsessed” with a soft landing and emphasized that “fine-tuning” and “worrying about a soft landing” is not their job. The reason why there is an urgency for a soft landing is because the Fed let the inflation rate jump in the first place, he added. Speaking of the Fed’s actions and forward guidance, Druckenmiller highlighted that the Fed believes that if it changes its due course of action, it may lose credibility, leaving its hands tied.
Stanley Druckenmiller is an American billionaire, investor, and founder of Duquesne Capital, with a net worth of $6.9 billion, as of December 14, 2024. Druckenmiller has made a fortune as a hedge fund manager for 30 big years and now manages money from his family office. He also worked with George Soros until 2000, a renowned investor known for shorting the pound in 1992. He also shares interesting opinions on the money market and the economy. In Q3 2024, Druckenmiller initiated 33 new positions, ending the quarter with a portfolio of $2.95 billion in 13F securities. With that, let’s discuss his top stock picks as of Q3 2024.
Our Methodology
We scanned Duquesne Capital’s Q3 2024 portfolio and picked the fund’s top 13F holdings. Additionally, we’ve also added overall hedge fund sentiment for each stock, as of Q3 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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A woman holding a laptop, wearing a graphic t-shirt, casually checking her e-commerce order.
Coupang, Inc. (NYSE:CPNG)
Duquesne Capital’s Stake Value: $287,139,000
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 56
Coupang, Inc. (NYSE:CPNG) is an e-commerce company based in Seoul, South Korea, with a market share of 25% in the country. The online retail company sells beauty, skincare, snacks, electronics, and clothing items on its platform, Coupang Marketplace. The company celebrates a strong e-commerce infrastructure, boasting more than 100 unique fulfillment centers covering more than 47 million square feet.
In the third quarter of 2024, the company logged $7.9 billion in net revenues, up by 27% year over year. Coupang’s product commerce revenue increased by 16% year-over-year and active customers by 11% in the third quarter of 2024 During the same quarter, CPNG generated $64 million in net income and operating cash flow for the 12 months ended September 30 was $1.8 billion. Apart from its strong e-commerce infrastructure, Coupang (NYSE:CPNG) is a customer favorite, as evidenced by its 22.5 million strong customer base.
Appalaches Capital stated the following regarding Coupang, Inc. (NYSE:CPNG) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“A new core holding of the portfolio that may appear confusing is Coupang, Inc. (NYSE:CPNG). Coupang mainly provides a first-party marketplace in South Korea and Taiwan that is similar to Amazon here in the U.S. Coupang additionally has other digital services such as Coupang Play (streaming), Coupang Eats (food delivery), and Coupang Pay (payments). Coupang has a dominant position in South Korean e-commerce, with nearly half of the population represented as an active customer on the platform. At first glance, the company appears marginally profitable and very expensive against current earnings, so it certainly appears to be an outlier against the rest of the portfolio.
A couple of months ago, I shared an article addressing this very subject. As a value investor, I aim to buy shares in businesses trading at a discount to their intrinsic value. This intrinsic value is simply the present value of future cash flows, which can be materially different from the cash flows of the business today. Clearly, I believe this is the case with Coupang…” (Click here to read the full text)
Overall, CPNG ranks 2nd on our list of Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential of CPNG to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that certain AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CPNG 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.
