Famed investor Stanley Druckenmiller was busy in the second quarter.
Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office reduced its holdings in what were its three largest long positions at the end of March and sharply cut back on several other top positions, according to the second-squarter 13F filing, made public late last week. Duquesne also initiated two new positions that instantly joined the family office’s top-ten common stocks and added significantly to other holdings.
Druckenmiller is best known as a prolific macro trader who runs an eclectic and diversified portfolio. The amount his family office manages and the asset allocation are not public. However, quarterly 13F filings show that Duquesne had about $2.82 billion in U.S.-listed common stock long positions at the end of June, down approximatley $3.7 billion from the previous quarter and more in line with third-quarter 2023.
A couple of years ago, Druckenmiller was bullish on the prospects of artificial intelligence. But over the past three quarters, the family office liquidated about 98 percent of its holdings in AI leader Nvidia — which was its largest U.S. long as recently as the end of September 2023 — including an 88 percent reduction in the second quarter of 2024, leaving huge gains on the table.
In the second quarter, Druckenmiller drastically cut the three largest positions by the end of the period. He sold nearly two-thirds of his position in Microsoft, the largest long in the previous quarter. It is now the family office’s sixth-largest long position. And Duquesne reduced its holding in South Korean giant Coupang — its No. 2 long for some time and a previous investor when the company was private — by more than half. It remained the second-largest long. Duquesne cut its stake in Teck Resources as well, by nearly 70 percent. The Canadian natural resources giant was the family office’s third-largest long position at the end of the first quarter and is now the 12th-largest common stock long.
Duquesne also made several significant purchases in the second quarter. Perhaps most notable: It boosted its stake in Coherent Corp. by more than 42 percent, catapulting the maker of optical materials and semiconductors to the portfolio’s largest U.S.-listed common stock long. At the end of the first quarter, the stock was Duquesne’s seventh-largest. Duquesne also increased its position in energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan by about three-quarters, making it the eighth-largest common stock long.
In the second quarter, Duquesne established two new positions that instantly became top-ten holdings. It initiated an investment in Mid-America Apartment Communities, a real estate investment trust that invests in apartments in the southeastern and southwestern United States. And it made a new investment in Philip Morris International. It also reported a sizable new stake in the company’s call options, potentially further boosting its total stake.