For some investors, earnings season is the pinnacle of data dumps on Wall Street. This is the six-week period each quarter where the stock market's most prominent and influential businesses lift the hood on their operating results.
However, a strong argument can be made that the quarterly filing of Form 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission provides equally invaluable information to investors. A 13F is a required filing by institutional investors who have at least $100 million in assets under management.
What makes 13Fs so precious is they can clue investors into the stocks, industries, sectors, and trends that have piqued the attention of Wall Street's brightest money managers.
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While Warren Buffett tends to be the most-followed of all fund managers, he's not the only billionaire capable of delivering outsized returns or locating a good deal. Tiger Global Management's billionaire chief Chase Coleman is known for his love of small- and large-cap growth stocks, as well as his desire to pack his fund's portfolio with companies that can take advantage of Wall Street's next-big-thing trends.
During the March-ended quarter, Coleman green-lit the sale of most of his fund's stake in ride-share colossus Uber Technologies (UBER -0.10%), and piled into into a skyrocketing tech stock whose addressable market in the next-hottest investment trend -- no, not artificial intelligence (AI) -- can 11X by 2032.
Billionaire Chase Coleman slams the door on Uber
Though Tiger Global Management's billionaire chief pared down or exited his fund's stake in 11 companies during the first quarter, the 2,446,700 shares of Uber Technologies that were sold is the biggest eye-opener. This worked out to a 94% reduction from Tiger Global's position at the end of 2024.
The most logical of all reasons for this selling activity is simple profit-taking. While few money managers hold for the long-term these days, Tiger Global's average holding period is a little over two years and eight months. With Coleman's fund holding north of 5 million shares of Uber during the third quarter of 2023, and Uber stock effectively doubling since then, locking in gains may have been viewed as a wise idea.
However, there might be more to Chase Coleman's selling activity in Uber than just benign profit-taking.
Perhaps the biggest risk for Uber in the ride-sharing arena is steadily growing competition. Since David Risher took over as CEO of Lyft (LYFT -1.67%) in April 2023, all he's done is clamp down on unnecessary costs and shift his company from a cash-burner to a significant cash generator. With Lyft now profitable on a recurring basis and generating boatloads of cash flow from operations, it has a genuine opportunity to chip away at Uber's market-leading share.
To build on this point regarding competitive pressures, Coleman may have also been anticipating downside pressure from robotaxis. Alphabet's autonomous ride-hailing service Waymo is rapidly expanding its service in Los Angeles and San Francisco, while Tesla recently unveiled a test service of its robotaxis in portions of Austin, Texas.
Uber Technologies' valuation is a bit of an eyesore, as well. When 2023 began, Uber was valued at less than 2 times sales. As of this writing on July 20, it's now tipping the scales at nearly 4.3 times sales. Though its current price-to-sales (P/S) ratio is still less than half of its peak in 2021, it's roughly four times higher than chief rival Lyft. This issue is that Lyft appears to be a far better value than Uber, even with the latter providing sales channel diversification via Uber Eats and its logistics network.
The final piece of the puzzle that may have enticed Chase Coleman to dump shares of Uber is the prospect of a U.S. recession taking place. Uber isn't time-tested in the sense that it hasn't navigated its way through an organic U.S. recession. This is yet another uncertainty that calls its somewhat premium valuation into question.
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This stock is up almost 1,000% in a decade, and Chase Coleman is gobbling up its shares
On the other end of the spectrum, Tiger Global Management's billionaire investor purchased five new stocks during the first quarter and added to 14 existing positions. Though quite a few of these buys probably turned heads, the 896,700 shares of Microsoft (MSFT 1.21%) that Coleman bought stands out. This upped Tiger Global's stake in Microsoft by 17% since the end of 2024.
Most investors have been piling into Microsoft because of its cloud computing and artificial intelligence ties. Azure is the world's No. 2 cloud infrastructure service platform by spending, based on estimates by Canalys. Incorporating generative AI solutions, and giving its subscribers the ability to build and train large language models, provides Azure with an opportunity to sustain a 30% (or greater) growth rate.
But this might not be the only reason Coleman is loading up on shares of Microsoft, or why shares of the company have skyrocketed just shy of 1,000% over the trailing decade.
In addition to AI, quantum computing has earned its time in the spotlight. This still-developing technology relies on specialized computers that use quantum mechanics to solve complex equations that traditional computers can't do. Quantum computing can potentially make AI algorithms more efficient, as well as aid with drug development, among other benefits.
Based on an estimate from Fortune Business Insights, the global addressable market for quantum computing is expected to grow nearly 11-fold from $1.16 billion in 2024 to $12.62 billion by 2032. Note: Estimates are all over the map with quantum computing, with some foreseeing the cumulative economic impact of this technology approaching $1 trillion in a decade. Microsoft is among the companies on the cutting-edge of this next hot trend.
Microsoft has developed a quantum processing unit known as Majorana 1, which is being integrated with a cloud-based compute platform that it's dubbed "Azure Quantum." While this is still in its very early stages, Microsoft's solutions can allow businesses to run quantum algorithms, as well as estimate what resources would be needed to scale quantum machines in the future. Though Microsoft isn't a quantum computing pure-play, it's clearly benefiting from the hype surrounding this technology.
Something else noteworthy about Microsoft is its cash flow generation and pristine balance sheet. The company's legacy Windows and Office segments generate copious amounts of cash flow that it can redirect to faster-growing initiatives, such as cloud computing, AI, and quantum computing.
Microsoft closed out the March quarter with almost $80 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, and it's generated over $93 billion in net cash from operations through the first nine months of fiscal 2025 (its fiscal year ended on June 30). Microsoft has the ability to take innovative risks that most other companies can't afford to.
