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 Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) 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).
Aerial view of a major oil rig in the middle of the sea, pumping crude oil.
Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM)
Fisher Asset Management’s Equity Stake: $3.42 Billion
Number of Hedge Funds Holding Stakes: 86
Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) is one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. It operates in 60 countries and works in areas like exploration, production, refining, manufacturing, and chemicals. The stock is up by more than 15% for the year despite oil prices plunging below the $70 a barrel level.
Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM)’s competitive edge stems from its diversified world-class asset portfolio. The vast business portfolio was the catalyst behind solid third-quarter results. It delivered industry-leading earnings of $8.6 billion on November 1, 2024. Cash flow from operating activities was $17.6 billion, and free cash flow was $11.3 billion. Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) is one of the companies looked upon in the energy sector ahead of Donald Trump’s second term. Trump looks to be friendlier to traditional oil and gas production, which would benefit oil drillers and natural gas and oil service providers.
The company’s new efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are also expected to boost earnings. By 2027, the oil giant plans to invest about $20 billion in various projects like carbon capture and storage, biofuels, lithium, and hydrogen. By 2050, Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) expects its low-carbon businesses to have a $6 trillion market, with long-term revenue potential in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Overall XOM ranks 15th on our list of Ken Fisher’s top stock picks heading into 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of XOM 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 XOM 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.