In this piece, we will take a look at Bill Gates' latest investment portfolio and its November 2023 update. If you want to skip our introduction to the technology billionaire and how his investments are shaping the world as we know today, then take a look at Bill Gates Portfolio: November 2023 Update - Top 5 Stocks.
Bill Gates' fame and money come via having caught on to the personal computing industry when the sector was in its infancy. His company, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is one of the biggest technology companies in the world. At the root of Microsoft's success is the world changing computer science industry, which has managed to put a computer, in one form or the other, in the hands of millions of people worldwide.
While Mr. Gates has moved away from his trillion dollar firm, 2023 has been a year shaped by his decisions. This applies to both the stock market and the broader technology scene. Mr. Gates and his relationship with OpenAI have contributed to the rise of the world's most heavily trained artificial intelligence model ChatGPT. In turn, ChatGPT's progress has injected fervor into technology stocks, which needed a pick me up after the devastation to the market ushered in 2022 through the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the monetary policy effects of the coronavirus era.
According to the latest estimates, Bill Gates is currently worth $116 billion as of November 2023. Most of his wealth comes through his Microsoft shares, both indirectly and directly. Mr. Gates' capital is also held up in the investment firm Cascade Investment L.L.C., a private investment firm headquartered in Kirkland, Washington. Billionaires like Bill Gates don't just simply invest in companies or organizations through the money in their personally held bank accounts. Instead, they structure their investments through companies for several benefits. Cascade is closely related to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the two organizations share Cascade's chief investment officer Michael Larson.
Like the Bill Gates Foundation, Cascade also files with the SEC. Its latest filing came in July 2023 and revealed that the firm had owned 9.8 million shares of AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN). The shares opened at $157 on July 28th, implying that Bill Gates' investment in the Floridian car retailer was worth approximately $1.5 billion as of the time of the filing. Since the holding was disclosed, the stock has dipped and the shares are currently trading for $131.97. Another investment of the financial firm, often also called Bill Gates' family office, is the Western Asset Inflation-Linked Income Fund (NYSE:WIA). This fund invests primarily in inflation linked securities issued by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Shifting our focus back on the technology industry, OpenAI and ChatGPT have proven to be the biggest disruptors of the AI chatbot space. In their wake, there are numerous AI chatbot models that are now available for the public to use. Two of the most widely known AI platforms are Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)'s Bard and Elon Musk's xAI's Grok. At the same time, the potential offered by AI is not limited only to productivity tools. A significant chunk of the broader investor and corporate interest in AI - evidenced by the surge in technology and semiconductor stocks such as Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) - is represented by machine learning and its transformational potential for industries.
Bill Gates is still at the center of all the hype surrounding AI, as his and other investments allowed OpenAI to demonstrate that after training a model software such as ChatGPT on vast amounts of data, it is possible to let a model make advanced outputs that are above average human intelligence. However, when we talk about the third quarter, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made perhaps one of the biggest splashes in its recent history as it piled into stocks by the dozens as evidenced by its latest SEC filings.
Why is that? Well, the foundation's Q2 2023 SEC filings showed that it had made a total of 23 investments. Then, in the next quarter, these investments more than doubled as the Gates Foundation held 74 different investment stakes. In terms of their monetary value, the firm's Q2 investment portfolio was worth $42 billion and this slightly dropped to $38 billion by Q3 2023 end.
Today we'll look at these considerable changes to the investment portfolio, with some of Bill Gates' latest investments being Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:IEF).
Bill Gates Portfolio: November 2023 Update
Our Methodology
To compile our list of the latest stocks in Bill Gates' investment portfolio, we used the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's SEC filings for Q3 2023 and picked the top 12 out of its 51 latest investment additions.
Gates Foundation's Q3 2023 Investment: $3.9 million
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) marks a strong start to our Bill Gates stock portfolio updates. The firm has been at the center of the AI wave this year due to its GPUs. The firm is currently competing heavily with Bill Gates' Microsoft, as both have announced new hardware products that are designed specifically for AI use.
During Q2 2023, 175 out of the 910 hedge funds part of Insider Monkey's database had held a stake in NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). In the following quarter, Rajiv Jain's GQG Partners was the firm's biggest shareholder as it owned 14 million shares that were worth $6 billion.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), and iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:IEF) are met by NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in our list of Bill Gates' latest stock picks.
Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) is an American financial services company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It scored a win in November 2023 when Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) teamed up with a large banking company to provide investment services.
As of June 2023, 42 out of the 910 hedge funds profiled by Insider Monkey were the firm's investors. Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP)'s largest hedge fund investor in Q3 was Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global as it owned $571 million worth of shares.
Gates Foundation's Q3 2023 Investment: $4.2 million
Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is an enterprise computing company known for its inventory management and other platforms. It expanded its inventory management platform in November 2023 by expanding its support for the healthcare sector.
Insider Monkey dug through 910 hedge funds for their June quarter of 2023 shareholdings and found that 84 had bought Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)'s shares. Ken Fisher's Fisher Asset Management was the firm's biggest stakeholder as of September 2023 courtesy of its $1.9 billion investment.
Gates Foundation's Q3 2023 Investment: $4.29 million
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is the biggest private bank in the world in terms of total assets. The firm is focusing on the evolving role of blockchains in wealth management these days, and it has engaged in partnerships in Singapore to this effect.
By the end of 2023's second quarter, 106 out of the 910 hedge funds part of Insider Monkey's research had held a stake in the bank. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)'s largest shareholder in the third quarter was Ken Fisher's Fisher Asset Management due to its $1.6 billion stake.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is the holding company for Google. Like other big tech players, it is continuously upgrading its AI chatbot platform, and in November 2023, it expanded Bard's coverage to also allow teenagers to use the conversational assistant.
As of June 2023 end, 152 among the 910 hedge funds surveyed by Insider Monkey were Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)'s investors. During Q3 2023, the biggest shareholder in our database was Ken Fisher's Fisher Asset Management as it owned 43.7 million shares that were worth $5.7 billion.
Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) is a travel services company that is widely believed to be looking at a significant increase in revenues as global travel finally posts a complete recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Its shares are rated Buy on average and the average analyst share price target is $3,434.
Insider Monkey scoured through 910 hedge fund portfolios for their June quarter of 2023 shareholdings and found that 78 had bought the firm's shares. As of September 2023, Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG)'s largest hedge fund investor was Ken Fisher's Fisher Asset Management since it owns $1.1 billion worth of shares.
Gates Foundation's Q3 2023 Investment: $5.3 million
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) is a semiconductor company that designs and sells modems, radio modules, and other products. A weak semiconductor industry hasn't held it back, since the company has beaten analyst EPS estimates in all four of its latest quarters.
By Q2 2023 end, 72 out of the 910 hedge funds profiled by Insider Monkey had invested in Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO). Ken Fisher's Fisher Asset Management owned the biggest stake in the firm in the following quarter which was worth $1.7 billion.