We recently published a list of Ken Griffin Stock Portfolio: 10 Stocks to Buy. In this article, we are going to take a look at where NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) stands against other Ken Griffin's portfolio stocks to buy.
One of Wall Street’s Greatest
Ken Griffin, the visionary founder of Citadel Investment Group, launched his hedge fund in 1990 with $4.2 million, achieving unprecedented success. In 2022, Griffin’s fund delivered an extraordinary 153% return, driven by accurate bets on inflation and interest rates. With a portfolio now exceeding $518 billion, Citadel Investment Group is one of Wall Street’s most closely watched hedge funds, consistently achieving over 25% annual returns since 2016. Citadel employs a multi-strategy investment approach, combining long and short positions to capitalize on market opportunities. Its flagship fund, Wellington, anchors Citadel’s operations by investing across multiple asset classes and sectors, emphasizing diversification. In 2022, Wellington achieved an impressive 38% return, building on 26% in 2021 and 24% in 2020. Notably, the fund posted a 19.4% gain in 2019, more than double its 9.1% return in 2018.
While Griffin’s legacy is strongly tied to Citadel’s hedge fund, a significant portion of his Forbes-calculated net worth comes from Citadel Securities, valued at $22 billion after Sequoia and Paradigm acquired a small stake two years ago. Citadel Securities has redefined modern trading, challenging the traditional dominance of big banks. In just two decades, it has become the largest stock buyer and seller in the U.S.; in August, it facilitated more equity trading within its electronic network than the New York Stock Exchange’s main market. In 2023, Citadel Securities generated $2.8 billion in profit from $6.3 billion in net revenue, with an impressive $4.9 billion in net revenue achieved in the first half of 2024 alone.
The billionaire also ranks among the top donors to outside spending groups for the 2024 election, which secured former President Donald Trump a second term. As the founder and CEO of Citadel, he contributed $100 million to conservative causes, making him the fifth-largest individual contributor to federal election spending, according to Federal Election Commission data. While Griffin has donated millions to Republican candidates, particularly since 2022, he has notably refrained from directly supporting Trump’s campaign. A self-described “Reagan Republican,” Griffin has historically favored establishment-focused Super PACs, such as the Congressional Leadership Fund.
Our Methodology
For this our list of the 10 best stocks in Ken Griffin’s portfolio, we examined Citadel Investment Group’s stock portfolio from the third quarter of 2024. The stocks are ranked based on the firm’s stake value in each holding.
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. 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).
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA): AI Dominance in Ken Griffin's Portfolio
A close-up of a colorful high-end graphics card being plugged in to a gaming computer.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is a global leader in graphics computing and networking solutions, with its GPUs driving high demand in gaming and AI applications. This strong market position has propelled the company to a trillion-dollar valuation.
On October 29, NVIDIA introduced its Enterprise Reference Architectures, providing blueprints to help partners and customers develop AI factories. More recently, on November 6, the company announced a collaboration with Hugging Face aimed at advancing open-source AI robotics research and development.
As NVIDIA’s earnings report approaches, analysts at Jefferies anticipate another stellar quarter for the AI powerhouse. They expect the company to exceed revenue expectations and raise its guidance, fueled by the rollout of its Blackwell processors and continued growth in the Hopper GPU lineup. In a November 15 note, Jefferies projected NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) to surpass the consensus revenue estimate of $33 billion for October, forecasting $34 billion—$1.5 billion above the company’s guidance of $32.5 billion. Looking ahead to January, the analysts expect revenue to exceed the consensus estimate of $36.6 billion, projecting $38.1 billion. Jefferies attributes its optimism to the robust performance of NVIDIA’s Blackwell processors, with third-quarter revenue estimated at $4 billion and expected to surge to $9 billion in Q4. Similarly, the Hopper GPUs, alongside the H20 product line, are anticipated to maintain strong momentum, with H20 revenues forecasted to grow from $1.8 billion in Q3 to $4.2 billion in Q4.
Overall, NVDA ranks 2nd on our list of Ken Griffin's portfolio stocks to buy. While we acknowledge the potential of NVDA, our conviction lies in the belief that certain 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 NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
