5 AI Stock Picks and Performance of Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller Fahad Saleem Tue, November 10, 2026 at 1:33 PM EST 10 min read STX -2.64% GOOG -0.40% AMZN +1.36% STM +0.20% TSM +1.34% Explore stocks on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller has been bullish on AI since before ChatGPT launched. He is one of the most closely followed macro investors on Wall Street. He averaged about 30% a year at Duquesne Capital with no losing year, and his 1992 bet against the British pound made more than $1 billion.
The AI trade has taken a turn for the worse since the end of the second quarter. Nine of Stanley Druckenmiller's 10 AI stock picks on this list have declined since June 30, with the stocks losing an average of 27.8% on an equal-weight basis through November 9, compared with a gain of about 0.8% for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY). We have included each stock's performance since June 30 in the list below.But did Druckenmiller get out before the crash? We could find out in just a few days, when his family office is expected to disclose its third-quarter holdings. The filing will reveal whether he sold or reduced positions before the latest AI selloff, or held on to stocks that subsequently suffered steep losses.
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Druckenmiller told CNBC in May 2024 that his young partner urged him in 2022 to buy Nvidia. He bought it, and a month later ChatGPT launched, so he raised the position substantially. He cut the stake in late March 2024 after a huge run, and he said he is not Warren Buffett and does not hold stocks for 20 years. He called AI a little over-hyped in the short term and under-hyped in the long term.
Speaking of Buffett, we ranked the Berkshire Hathaway holdings with the most room to rise in our list of the 10 best Warren Buffett stocks with upside potential.
Druckenmiller has called AI real from the start. In a June 2023 Bloomberg interview, he said AI is real, unlike crypto. He said real secular shifts do not move in 10 months, and that the internet bubble lasted about two and a half years. He wanted to own Nvidia for at least two to three years.
By May 2024, his tone had changed. He told CNBC that AI could be a little over-hyped now and under-hyped in the long term. He compared it to the internet in 1999, when someone who bought the Nasdaq watched it fall 80% before the internet's payoff arrived. He said history could rhyme, and the big payoff from all the AI spending might be four to five years away.
In a Morgan Stanley interview recorded in January, Druckenmiller pointed out that people called every past technology revolution the end of jobs, all the way back to the horse and buggy. He gave radiologists as an example. Machines read prostate cancer pathology as well as or better than humans, but there are more radiologists today than ten years ago, because they now spend their time with patients. He also warned that AI could turn inflationary if governments answer job losses by printing money.
You can click to see the top 10 AI stock picks of Stanley Druckenmiller and their performance. Below we mention his top 5 AI picks as of Q2.
Duquesne Family Office's second-quarter 13F showed he is still buying AI stocks. In this list, we rank 5 of those stocks by the value of Druckenmiller's stake at the end of the second quarter, from lowest to highest. For each stock, we track its performance this year through November 9, measured from its January 2 close.
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. Insider Monkey's quarterly newsletter strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 612% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 375 percentage points (see more details here).
You can watch our video to see the full list of 10 AI stock picks of billionainre Druckenmiller by clicking the image below.
Druckenmiller Stake as of Q2: $117.7 Million
Year to Date Performance (through November 9): +76%
Return since June 30th: -47.5%
Seagate makes the large hard drives that data centers use to store data. Druckenmiller more than doubled his stake in the second quarter by adding 71,300 shares. His fund now owns 122,000 shares, which made up 2.26% of his portfolio, up from 0.59% in the first quarter.
AI creates huge amounts of data, and Seagate's largest drives are in short supply. The shortage lets Seagate raise prices, which has pushed its profit margins and cash flow to records. Its 2027 prices are already locked in, and Morgan Stanley thinks demand could grow even faster than the companies say.
The risk is 2028. Western Digital, Toshiba and parts suppliers are all adding capacity, just as Seagate sets its 2028 prices. Analysts still expect margins to keep rising. If AI spending slows, drive orders would feel it a few quarters later. The stock trades at 11.5 times expected earnings, a low multiple that shows investors expect profits to peak.
Seagate dropped more than 10% in a single day on a report that Toshiba plans to add hard drive supply, because more supply from a rival can weaken Seagate's pricing power. See whether the dip is a buying chance.
Druckenmiller Stake as of Q2: $120.2 Million
Year to Date Performance (through November 9): -9%
Return since June 30th: -19.3%
Druckenmiller sold his Alphabet stake in the first quarter and then changed his mind. His fund bought 336,300 shares in the second quarter, and the stake made up 2.31% of his portfolio. Alphabet is one of only two stocks on this list that are down this year.
The bull case is that Google Cloud has become a second growth engine. In the third quarter, Cloud revenue grew 103% from the same quarter a year ago, and CEO Sundar Pichai said demand for its AI infrastructure is huge. Nearly 100 customers use its TPUs, and Alphabet now sells them outside the company. Search revenue still grew 12% from a year earlier. Total revenue rose 25% and operating income rose 30% in the same period. Alphabet also owns about 5% of SpaceX, which went public in June. The stock is more than 30% below its May high, which gives buyers a lower entry point.
Alphabet's free cash flow turned negative in the second quarter for the first time since the company went public, while Search revenue still grew 17% from a year earlier. Find out why investors still like it.
Druckenmiller Stake as of Q2: $129.1 Million
Year to Date Performance (through November 9): +18%
Return since June 30th: 12%
Amazon Web Services rents out AI computing power to thousands of companies, and Amazon also builds its own AI chips. Druckenmiller's fund added 495,800 shares in the second quarter and now owns 541,600 shares as of Q2. The stake made up 2.48% of his portfolio, up from 0.28% in the first quarter. His fund also held call options on Amazon shares.
Amazon could benefit even if the AI data center build-out slows after the midterm elections, Wall Street analyst Dan Ives said in a note to clients. He assumes about 10% of the 800 to 1,000 data centers planned in the US do not get built, and he tested a harsher case where 30% are cancelled over the next 18 months, according to the note. In either case, Amazon and other big cloud companies that already have data center capacity running become more valuable, because less new capacity competes with them, Ives wrote. He expects Big Tech spending growth to peak in 2027, earlier than his old forecast of 2028 or 2029, and he expects the big companies to raise about 25% less capital over the next year, Ives said. The AI boom still continues at a slower pace, which he called "hugely bullish" for Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta Platforms.
L1 Capital expects Amazon Web Services spending to push Amazon's free cash flow negative, but the fund says the market is too focused on near-term cash flow. Click to see why the fund stays optimistic.
Druckenmiller Stake as of Q2: $232.4 Million
Year to Date Performance (through November 9): +62%
Return since June 30th: -40.4%
STMicroelectronics is a European company that makes chips for cars and industrial equipment. It now also sells chips to AI data centers, where they manage power and move data. Druckenmiller's fund added 490,000 shares in the second quarter and now owns 3,102,880 shares.
STMicroelectronics bull case moves around a recovery play with an AI boost. Profits fell hard during the car and industrial slump, so the stock offered a chance to buy before earnings caught up. AI data center demand gives it a second growth driver. In its recently reported quarter, revenue rose 17.9% from the same quarter a year ago and beat Wall Street's estimate. Sales in the segment that holds AI and satellite parts grew 46.2% from a year earlier. Management raised its 2026 data center sales outlook and expects 2027 to be much higher. It also expects factory changes to add more than 4 percentage points to gross margin by early 2028.
STMicroelectronics expects its AI data center sales to roughly double next year and is closing four older factories to lift its profit margins, though its power chip business still loses money. Check the risks and the upside here.
Druckenmiller Stake as of Q2: $281.6 Million
Year to Date Performance (through November 9): +22%
Return since June 30th: -18.4%
TSMC makes chips for Nvidia, AMD and Apple, so much of the AI boom runs through its factories. Druckenmiller's fund owns 589,680 shares, the largest stake on this list. It made up 5.40% of his portfolio, up from 4.96% in the first quarter. He added 94,400 shares in the second quarter, a 19.1% increase. The stock is up 22% this year through November 9.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) remains well-positioned to benefit from long-term AI growth, regardless of which chip designer emerges as the industry leader. Its technological dominance in advanced semiconductor manufacturing, including its N2 process and CoWoS packaging technology, gives it significant pricing power and a competitive advantage that rivals may struggle to replicate. Demand for advanced chips continues to exceed supply, with production capacity largely booked through 2027. The company also benefits from strong profitability, software-like margins and substantial cash generation. Bulls say the recent semiconductor selloff could present an attractive entry point for long-term investors.
Click to continue read and see the expanded list of the 10 AI Stock Picks and Performance of Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller.
While we acknowledge the potential of TSM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.
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