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Very few investors can match Stanley Druckenmiller. He delivered an average annual return of over 30% over three decades at Duquesne Capital without a single losing year, but he does not own Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR), and Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) today. We’ll look into why in a bit.
Druckenmiller is a timeless icon who has done very well in the recent past, with his portfolio up 9.07% in just Q3 2025 alone.
His current portfolio contains 62 holdings.
You’d expect his top holdings to be the usual Mag 7, plus some AI stocks. After all, how can you perform well without investing in these stocks? Almost every hedge fund and ETF that tried to sidestep these stocks ended up lagging the market.
Remember, Druckenmiller isn’t just any hedge fund manager. He has managed to do well with his top holdings being almost devoid of any AI software companies, with the only AI bet being Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM).
Let’s take a look at his moves with these top AI companies he does not hold.
Nvidia (NVDA)
Stanley Druckenmiller started adding Nvidia shares in late 2022, very early on after ChatGPT’s release. He bought in Q4 2022, Q1 2023, and Q2 2023.
But starting in Q3 2023, he started shedding his NVDA stake. He sold for 5 straight quarters as NVDA stock climbed higher and higher. He sold his last NVDA share in Q3 2024, when NVDA stock reached nearly $135.
The stock is at $178 today, so did Druckenmiller make a massive mistake? Likely not.
His top 3 holdings today have done a lot better than Nvidia, and taking profits in 2024 and shifting into those were anything but a miscalculation. Druckenmiller likely identified that NVDA stock became too expensive for his liking and didn’t have comparable upside potential vs. the stocks he moved into.
Palantir (PLTR)
Druckenmiller has had an on-and-off relationship with Palantir. He sold over half his shares in Q3 2021, then bought in Q1 2022 and Q2 2022. Again, he sold for over a year straight from Q3 2022 to Q2 2023.
He took a break from the stock before buying in Q1 2024, buying 770,000 shares before selling 94.6% of his shares (728,000) in Q3 2024. He sold whatever PLTR stock he had left in Q1 2025, presumably near the peak price of ~$120, as Palantir’s rally accelerated aggressively.
PLTR stock has climbed up to $187.75 today.
While he did miss out on Palantir’s gains since Q1, he took out big profits from Palantir and piled into what he saw as “safer” stocks with bigger upside. It would be out of order for an investor like Druckenmiller to pay an earnings multiple deep in the triple digits for PLTR stock.
And this paid off.
The top 3 stocks in his portfolio have all performed better than or equal to PLTR stock over the past 6 months. His biggest holding outperformed PLTR by over 2x, with the second-biggest holding outperforming it by nearly 3x (it is up 100% in the past 6 months). The third holding is essentially neck and neck with Palantir’s 35.8% performance.
Eli Lilly (LLY)
Druckenmiller has quite a long history with Eli Lilly, but we’ll be looking into transactions in the past 5 years. He bought for 3 straight quarters, in Q2 2022, Q3 2022, and Q4 2022. Druckenmiller then took profits for 6 straight quarters from Q1 2023 to Q2 2024 as he shed all his LLY stock holdings as the company did exceedingly well.
He made a hefty profit doing so, only to re-enter in Q4 2024 as LLY stock dropped from the $900s range to the $700s range. Druckenmiller bought for 3 straight quarters but then ended up selling it all in Q3 2025, equalling a sale of 101,000 shares in total.
Q3 had an average closing price of $744.53. LLY stock has since recovered and is at $1,054 as of this writing.
Druckenmiller likely grew impatient with this drawn-out recovery and didn’t want to stay in the loop with the company, especially with the uncertainty surrounding drug prices as the government got involved.
And again, while he missed out on gains on LLY, his top holdings have delivered much more.