Why Amazon, Alphabet and Uber Keep Showing Up in the Same Billionaire Portfolios
Four of the sharpest institutional investors on the planet converged on the same three stocks in Q1 2026, and one of those picks is down nearly 17% this year. Here is what they are seeing that most retail investors are…
When the Q1 2026 13F filings were released in mid-May (Q2 filing are released later in August), three names kept surfacing across the sharpest institutional portfolios: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Uber (NYSE:UBER).
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square disclosed Amazon as roughly 17.4% of the portfolio and Uber at 15.7%. David Tepper’s Appaloosa added to both Amazon (~15.2%) and Uber (~7.7%), while slightly trimming Alphabet to roughly 8%. Li Lu’s Himalaya Capital ran Alphabet at ~44.8% combined between GOOGL and GOOG, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway more than doubled its Alphabet stake to roughly 6% of the portfolio. Berkshire, worth noting, does not own Amazon.
Amazon: The AI Cash Machine Ackman and Tepper Are Backing
Amazon traded around $273.86 on Aug. 6, up nearly 21% year to date and tracking the thesis holding both Ackman and Tepper. Q1 2026 revenue rose 16.6% to $181.52 billion, and EPS of $2.78 beat expectations of $1.65. AWS grew 28%, the fastest in 15 quarters, at a 37.7% operating margin.
Advertising delivered $17.24 billion, up 24%. Andy Jassy’s $200 billion 2026 capex plan is the tell: this is a compounding cash machine being redeployed into AI infrastructure while trading at a forward P/E of 31.
Alphabet: The Value Play Buffett and Li Lu Both See
Alphabet is the clearest consensus name of the three, and the reason is quantitative. Shares are up 14.09% YTD and 83.36% over one year, yet the forward P/E sits at just 26. Q1 2026 EPS of $5.11 beat expectations of $2.53. Google Cloud grew 63% to $20.03 billion, with backlog nearly doubling to over $460 billion.
Waymo is running more than 500,000 fully autonomous rides per week. When Buffett doubles down and Li Lu (his ideological heir) runs a portfolio nearly half-weighted in one name, they see the same thing: a growth business trading like a value stock. (For readers focused on this exact playbook, the 24/7 Wall St. free report 7 Warren Buffett Stocks to Buy Now is worth a look.)
Uber: The Contrarian Compounder
Uber is the outlier. Shares are down 16.68% YTD and 22.62% over the past year, yet Ackman and Tepper both hold it. Why? Q1 2026 gross bookings rose 25% to $53.72 billion, Uber One hit 50 million members driving half of gross bookings, and the company returned $3.01 billion in Q1 buybacks against $2.29 billion of free cash flow.
The forward P/E is 22, ROE is 35.3%, and the Zoox and Waymo partnerships position Uber as the aggregation layer for autonomous vehicles regardless of who wins the tech race.
Should Retail Follow?
The pattern is coherent, not coincidental. All three are platform businesses with high ROE, strong free cash flow, and AI-linked optionality that trades below their growth rate. Alphabet screens as the most defensible entry given the valuation gap. Amazon offers the cleanest AI infrastructure exposure. Uber is the highest-conviction contrarian setup, but requires patience through the AV transition. 13F data is point-in-time as of March 31, 2026, so positions may have shifted. For retirement-focused investors, the takeaway is the shared thesis: quality compounders bought at reasonable multiples still work. Copying the trade is optional. Understanding why four elite managers converged here is not.
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Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.
He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.
