Bill Gates shot to fame after he saw significant potential in global personal computing industry when this sector was in infancy. Bill Gates’ company, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), has been categorized as the biggest technology company in the world. But what has caused Microsoft Corporation to become what it is today? Well, it is the world changing computer science industry, enabling to put computer, in some form, in the hands of billions and trillions of people globally. As the result of this, Bill Gates investment portfolio is dominated by the high-tech internet companies.
Despite moving away from his trillion-dollar firm, the current year (2023) was shaped by his phenomenal decisions. This holds true for both i.e., stock market and overall tech sector. Mr. Bill Gates and his ideology about OpenAI resulted in the rise of world’s renowned artificial intelligence model, ChatGPT. The advent of ChatGPT was so influential that its progress has injected fervor into the range of technology stocks. These stocks needed a hand after the devastation caused to the market in 2022 as a result of Russian invasion of Ukraine and US Federal Reserve’s decision about the monetary policy after COVID-19 pandemic. After revival in the tech stocks, Bill Gates investment portfolio was tracked by numerous retail investors.
As per the latest estimates, Bill Gates has a net worth of ~$116 billion as of November 2023. Much of his net worth is defined by his Microsoft shares, both indirectly and directly. Apart from this, his capital is invested in the investment firm, Cascade Investment L.L.C. This is a private investment firm which has its headquarters in Kirkland, Washington.
Bill Gates investment portfolio forms the center of all the hype and news around artificial intelligence because his and several other investments enabled OpenAI to exhibit that after training the model software, for example ChatGPT, on significant amount of data, there is a possibility that the model can make advanced outputs which are the better version of human intelligence.
With this in mind, let us now have a look at Bill Gates investment portfolio.
1. NVIDIA Corporation
The company has been categorised as a top designer of discrete graphics processing units which enhance the experience on the computing platforms.
In 2Q24, it saw record revenue of $13.51 billion, exhibiting a rise of ~88% as compared to Q1. On the year-over-year basis, this exhibits a rise of ~101%. It saw record Data Center revenue of $10.32 billion, exhibiting a rise of ~171% year-over-year. Gates Foundation’s 3Q23 investment in the company’s shares came in at $3.9 million.
GAAP earnings per diluted share for 2Q24 came in at $2.48, exhibiting a rise of 854% from the year ago and a rise of ~202% in comparison to the previous quarter.During 2Q24, the company returned ~$3.38 billion to its shareholders through 7.5 million shares repurchased for the consideration of $3.28 billion, and cash dividends. As of the end of 2Q, the company had $3.95 billion remaining in its share repurchase authorization.
For 3Q23, NVIDIA Corporation expects its revenue to be ~$16.00 billion, plus or minus 2% and its GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are anticipated to be between 71.5% – 72.5%, respectively, plus or minus 50 basis points. GAAP and non-GAAP other income and expense should be an income of ~$100 million, which excludes gains and losses from the non-affiliated investments.
In its gaming business, the company’s 2Q24 revenue came in at $2.49 billion, exhibiting a rise of ~11% from the previous quarter and ~22% year-over-year.
2. Ameriprise Financial, Inc.
The company is a diversified financial services company and bank holding company which is incorporated in Delaware and has its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gates Foundation’s 3Q23 investment in the company’s shares, as reported to the SEC, came in at $4 million.
In 3Q23, its adjusted operating earnings per diluted share excluding unlocking came in at $7.68, exhibiting a rise of ~21% from the prior year, as a result of the strength of the company’s diversified business model. It saw GAAP net income per diluted share of $8.14 in comparison to $9.41 a year ago, mainly due to market impacts on the valuation of derivatives and market risk benefits, and unlocking.
Assets under management and administration touched ~$1.2 trillion, exhibiting a rise of ~12% from strong client net inflows and market appreciation. Adjusted operating net revenues saw an increase of ~11% from organic growth, higher spread revenues and equity market appreciation.
Strength and flexibility of the company’s diversified business supported it in delivering strong quarterly results. As a firm, the company’s excellent capital management, stable financial results and proven expense discipline should help the company in experiencing growth moving forward.
Adjusted operating net revenues saw an increase of 13% to $2.4 billion as a result of continued growth in the client assets in both wrap and brokerage accounts. Apart from these measures, higher investment earnings from the cash products supported its operating net revenues which should act as a sustainable driver of the revenue.
3. Booking Holdings Inc.
The company has been categorized as world’s leading provider of online travel and related services. The services are provided to consumers and local partners across over 220 countries and territories.
In its 3Q23 financial results, gross travel bookings came in at $39.8 billion, exhibiting a rise of 24% from the prior-year quarter (~21% growth on constant-currency basis). Its total revenues came in at $7.3 billion, exhibiting a rise of 21% from the prior-year quarter.
The company expects its 4Q revenue as the percentage of gross bookings to be ~15%, exhibiting a rise from 4Q of the last year as a result of benefits from timing.
Conclusion
While above are some of the stocks present in Bill Gates investment portfolio, there are several other online businesses which are there in the billionaire’s portfolio.
OpenAI and ChatGPT are the biggest disruptors of AI chatbot space. Since its launch, there are several AI chatbot models which public can use freely. Two of them include Alphabet Inc.’s Bard and Elon Musk’s xAI’s Grok.
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