We recently compiled a list of the Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Top 15 Stock Picks Heading Into 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stands against Ken Fisher’s other top stock picks.
Ken Fisher is the founder of Fisher Asset Management, a financial adviser that he started nearly five decades ago. The firm oversees over $240 billion from more than 150,000 private investors.
Fisher said, “I’ve gone to cash three times in my career; in 1987 before the crash, before the 1990 bear market and in the early 2000s, before the dot-com crash. But I missed the 2007-2009 bear market because I didn’t believe, and don’t believe, mortgages could cause what they are blamed for having caused.”
Besides focusing on long-term investments, Fisher also believes in spreading out investments to reduce risk. Fisher Asset Management is highly diversified, with a portfolio value of about $244 billion. While technology stocks account for 31.8% of the portfolio, the independent money management firm is also heavily invested in the services sector, accounting for 14.6% of the portfolio. Other significant holdings are in the financial services, healthcare, and basic materials sectors.
In the past year, Fisher’s firm made a 32.18% return, mainly because it invested a lot in tech stocks, especially those benefiting from the AI boom. While other managers are selling tech stocks due to high valuations, Fisher’s firm is buying more, especially in companies making AI chips.
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Even though the overall market is at all-time highs, Fisher says there’s no need to worry. He believes that just because the market is high now, it doesn’t predict the future. He expects the market to keep going up as long as the economy and other key factors get better.
“Bull markets hit new highs on an ongoing basis as soon as they have recovered from the prior bear market and hit their first all-time high in that new bull market. They keep doing that over and over again and eventually you do get another bear market and then again get another bull market. Bull markets, not always, are usually significantly bigger and longer than bear markets, significantly,” Ken Fisher said.
Ken Fisher’s portfolio is heavily invested in the “magnificent seven” stocks, based on the belief that the stocks are well poised to continue outperforming the overall market. According to Fisher, growth stocks will continue outperforming value stocks amid the prevailing economic conditions.
“If you think the market is going up, you should expect the magnificent seven to continue to do well. Will they necessarily do better than everything? No, but they never actually did. The fact is they did better as a group than most groups you could find. I think that will continue to be the case because I am optimistic on the market as a whole moving forward”, Fisher said in a video interview.
Our Methodology
We looked through Fisher Asset Management’s portfolio to find Ken Fisher’s top 15 stock picks for 2025. We focused on his biggest investments and ranked the stocks from smallest to largest based on the firm’s stake at the end of Q3 2024.
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).
A wide view of an Apple store, showing the range of products the company offers.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Fisher Asset Management’s Equity Stake: $13.66 Billion
Number of Hedge Funds Holding Stakes: 158
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a tech giant best known for its iPhone, Mac computers, and iPads, among other hardware products. Hardware sales account for the biggest share of the company’s revenues at 75%. Nevertheless, the company also generates significant revenues from selling services. Its service segment includes the Apple Pay, App Store, Apple Music and iCloud units. It also offers advertising services.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of Ken Fisher’s top stock picks for 2025, with a 27.84% gain this year. Investors are optimistic about Apple’s future due to its strong financial performance, innovative products, and high demand for iPhones. On October 31, Apple reported a record fourth-quarter revenue of $94.9 billion, up 6% from last year, driven by the iPhone 16 series, Apple Watch Series 10, and AirPods 4. CEO Tim Cook also highlighted new Apple Intelligence features. On October 30, Apple introduced the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, which improve Mac performance and efficiency.
Similarly, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is staring at new revenue opportunities with the integration of artificial intelligence under Apple Intelligence. The company is integrating AI into its iPhones and services as one of the ways of fuelling demand to enhance the upgrade cycle. According to Citi’s Consumer Electronics Holiday Survey, smartphone spending and purchase intentions are rising, with iPhone preference rising to 48% from 46% the previous year.
In their third quarter 2024 investor letter, Madison Investments said the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL):
“Alphabet Inc., Eli Lilly and Company, Qualcomm Incorporated, Microsoft Corporation, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) were the largest detractors. Apple has been volatile in the last quarter but ended on strength. Early in the quarter, Apple benefited from the introduction of their AI strategy, Apple Intelligence. They followed in September with the new iPhone 16, which also created some excitement. We are underweight to Apple, which has resulted in a headwind for performance.”
Overall AAPL ranks 1st on our list of Ken Fisher’s top stock picks heading into 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL 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 timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AAPL 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.
