🔥 Superinvestors are buying similar stocks to me. Confirmation that my strategy makes sense?
Over the past few days I've been going through the latest reports of investors I've been following for a long time.
Bill Ackman. Pat Dorsey. Dev Kantesaria. Chuck Akre. François Rochon. Terry Smith.
Each of them invests a bit differently, but they all share one fundamental idea: buy exceptional companies that can increase their intrinsic value over the long term.
And when I compared their latest moves with what I've been doing in my portfolio over the past few months, I found surprisingly many similarities.
I don't take it as having to blindly copy them. Quite the opposite. Their reports are published with a delay, we don't know the exact purchase price or all the reasons behind individual decisions.
But it's nice to see that some of the best investors in the world have come to similar conclusions.
Not as a substitute for my own thinking.
Rather as independent confirmation that what I'm doing perhaps makes sense.
What investment style do they have?
Bill Ackman
Ackman manages a very concentrated portfolio, usually holding only a few large positions.
He looks for relatively simple and predictable businesses with strong market positions, recurring revenues, high free cash flow generation, and minimal dependence on external financing.
He doesn't want to own dozens of average companies. He prefers to hold a few exceptional businesses that he understands very well.
That's an approach that's very close to me.
Pat Dorsey
Dorsey focuses primarily on economic moat.
He looks for companies with network effects, high switching costs, strong brands, or other advantages that protect them from competition.
At the same time, he's interested in high return on invested capital, sensible capital allocation, and a long runway for further growth.
His portfolio is concentrated and he holds companies for the long term.
Dev Kantesaria
Kantesaria has perhaps the most concentrated style of all. His portfolio consists of only a few companies.
He likes dominant, often mission-critical platforms in areas like finance, data, ratings, and payments. Companies whose services customers simply need and find very hard to replace.
Typical examples are FICO, S&P Global, Moody's, Mastercard, Visa, or ASML.
Chuck Akre
Akre uses his famous "three-legged stool".
He looks for:
an exceptional business with high returns on capital,
able and honest management,
a long runway to reinvest profits at high returns.
His goal is not to catch short-term price moves. He wants to own companies that can compound their value for many years.
François Rochon
Rochon invests very similarly to Warren Buffett.
He buys quality companies with predictable earnings growth, strong competitive advantages, and sensible management. Then he holds them for a very long time and lets compounding work.
He doesn't try to catch every market move. He's interested in earnings per share growth and the long-term development of intrinsic value.
Terry Smith
Smith's approach can be summed up with the famous phrase:
Buy good companies. Don't overpay. Do nothing.
He seeks companies with high ROCE, strong conversion of profit into cash flow, low debt, and the ability to grow organically without constantly consuming more capital.
In his latest report, however, he admitted that Fundsmith will be somewhat more active and will pay more attention to fundamental and price momentum. The quality requirement for the company remains unchanged.
What did they do in the last quarter?
Ackman built a portfolio very similar to mine
Bill Ackman bought Visa, Mastercard, Netflix, and S&P Global. After the quarter ended, he also added Intercontinental Exchange and Alcon.
He added these new positions to companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Uber, and Brookfield.
When I look at it as a whole, the overlap with my portfolio is huge:
Microsoft
Amazon
Meta
Uber
Brookfield
Mastercard
Netflix
S&P Global
During the half-year, Ackman sold Alphabet and Universal Music Group.
Dorsey significantly added to Uber, SPGI, and Meta
Dorsey didn't enter any new company. However, he significantly increased existing positions.
He increased the number of shares by approximately:
Uber: +62%
S&P Global: +42%
AppLovin: +39%
Meta: +24%
On the other hand, he slightly reduced ASML and more significantly reduced AerCap and Sunbelt.
His purchases of Uber, S&P Global, and Meta are very similar to the direction I've been taking as well.
Kantesaria controlled concentration
Kantesaria didn't add any new company. He mainly reduced his large existing positions:
Mastercard: approximately −28%
Visa: approximately −23%
S&P Global: approximately −13%
FICO: approximately −13%
He left ASML, Moody's, and Intuit unchanged.
Even after the reduction, FICO remained his largest position. So I don't see it as a loss of confidence in the company, but rather as managing extreme concentration and possibly valuation.
Akre held FICO and added to ServiceNow
Chuck Akre neither added nor completely sold any company.
He relatively increased ServiceNow and CoStar the most. He left FICO practically unchanged, while reducing some large positions including Mastercard, Visa, and Brookfield.
With 13F, however, we don't know the reason for selling. Reductions may be related to valuation, concentration management, or capital outflows from the fund.
Rochon stayed loyal to Alphabet
François Rochon mainly added to ResMed and ADP. He also opened new positions in companies like New York Times, MSA Safety, Watsco, Veeva Systems, or American Express.
Importantly, Alphabet remained one of his largest investments. If we add GOOG and GOOGL, it made up about 11% of his US portfolio.
That's an interesting counterpoint to Ackman, who sold Alphabet completely.
Terry Smith bought Mastercard, Netflix, and Uber
Fundsmith had an unusually high portfolio turnover in the first half.
Smith started buying, among others:
Mastercard
Netflix
Uber
AppLovin
TSMC
Veeva Systems
GE Vernova
Legrand
He sold or started selling Intuit, Nike, Novo Nordisk, LVMH, Unilever, and other companies where he saw weaker fundamental growth, management problems, or unattractive valuation.
And what did I do?
The most interesting thing is that I made many of these moves before their reports were published.
I added to Meta
In May, I added to Meta Platforms and gradually increased its weight in my portfolio. By July it made up about 11–12% of the portfolio.
I repeatedly called the company one of the best opportunities in the market.
Record cash flow, strong position in digital advertising, WhatsApp, AI, and enormous ability to monetize its user base still create a very strong long-term thesis in my view.
Then we found out that Dorsey increased his Meta shares by about 24%. Ackman and Rochon held their large positions.
I moved capital from ASML to Mastercard
After a significant rise in ASML, I sold part of the position.
Not because the business deteriorated. I still consider ASML one of the highest-quality companies in the world.
But its weight in my portfolio was about 10–11% and the valuation was no longer as attractive. So I moved part of the capital into Mastercard.
Mastercard's weight moved from about 4% to over 6% between May and July.
During the same period, Ackman and Terry Smith started buying Mastercard. On the other hand, Kantesaria and Akre reduced it.
For me, that doesn't mean one side must be right and the other wrong. Long-term holders may have been managing position size, while Ackman and Smith used the price to create a new investment.
I started building Uber
At the end of May, I decided I wanted to gradually build Uber over the coming months.
Its weight in my portfolio then increased from about 1% to 1.6%.
The thesis is based on strong network effects, free cash flow growth, operating leverage, advertising, delivery, grocery, and Uber's potential role as a distribution platform for autonomous vehicles.
Subsequently:
Dorsey added about 62%,
Terry Smith opened a new position,
Ackman continued to hold Uber.
Of all my smaller positions, Uber currently has perhaps the strongest confirmation from these investors.
I held Netflix and S&P Global
I already owned Netflix as about a 4–5% position and considered it a bargain when the price dropped.
Subsequently, both Ackman and Smith bought Netflix.
I held S&P Global steadily at about 4% of the portfolio. Dorsey increased his position by about 42% and Ackman created a completely new position.
Kantesaria reduced SPGI, but even after selling, it still makes up a huge part of his portfolio.
With Alphabet, I'm going against Ackman
Alphabet remains one of my largest positions.
Ackman sold it, but Rochon holds it as about an 11% position. So even among the best investors, there is no unified opinion on every company.
And that's okay.
With Alphabet, I still see a strong advertising ecosystem, YouTube, cloud, vast amounts of data, an exceptional balance sheet, and many opportunities for further growth.
As long as my fundamental thesis doesn't change, another investor's sale is not a reason for me to change my decision.
Does that mean I'm automatically right?
Certainly not.
Even the best investors make mistakes. They buy at different prices, manage different amounts of capital, and have different limits, time horizons, or client requirements.
Moreover, the 13F report only shows a delayed picture of US long positions. It doesn't show cash, shorts, complete foreign investments, or the exact reasons for individual trades.
So I would never buy a stock just because Ackman, Dorsey, or Smith bought it.
First, I have to understand the company myself.
I need to know:
how it makes money,
what moat it has,
where further growth can come from,
what risks I'm taking,
what valuation I'm paying,
and why I want to own it for the next ten years.
Confirmation of process, not a substitute for my own opinion
Once upon a time, I sometimes bought just tickers.
Today I know the companies I own. I follow their results, cash flow, return on capital, valuation, competitive position, and long-term risks.
And that's why I'm pleased when I subsequently see that similar companies are being bought by investors I've long respected.
Not because their purchase guarantees me a return.
But because people who have spent decades looking for quality compounders have come to a similar conclusion.
My recent moves – adding to Meta and Mastercard, building Uber, holding Netflix and S&P Global, or partially moving capital from ASML – overlap to a large extent with what they did.
At the same time, we diverge on some things. I hold Alphabet, which Ackman sold. I also have smaller growth positions like MercadoLibre, Nu, or SoFi, which you won't find in their portfolios.
And that's exactly how it should be.
I don't want to create a copy of someone else's portfolio.
I want to build my own portfolio based on my understanding of companies, my time horizon, and my risk tolerance.
The latest reports from superinvestors don't give me certainty that I'm right.
But they give me another signal that my investment process and portfolio direction perhaps really make sense.
And that's a pleasant confirmation. 👌
The article does not constitute investment advice. It is my personal view and a comparison of publicly available reports with the moves in my portfolio.