{"id":622424,"date":"2026-09-21T02:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T02:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622424\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T02:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T02:14:11","slug":"bill-ackman-built-a-2-4-billion-stake-in-microsoft-calling-it-a-core-holding-bought-at-a-highly-compelling-valuation-heres-why-hes-betting-big-on-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622424\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Ackman Built a $2.4 Billion Stake in Microsoft, Calling It a “Core Holding” Bought at a “Highly Compelling Valuation.” Here’s Why He’s Betting Big on Big Tech."},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, Pershing Square (PS<\/a> +13.69%) founder and CEO Bill Ackman piled into a stock well-known not only to tech investors, but the general public at large: Microsoft (MSFT<\/a> -0.80%). <\/p>\n

This demonstrates the famous investor’s bullish outlook on the tech sector,<\/a> as four slots in the company’s limited equity portfolio are held by prominent tech names (or at least heavily tech-slanted, in the case of rideshare king Uber Technologies). Here’s why Ackman and his team are so drawn to the sector these days. <\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/p>\n

Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman. Image source: Getty Images.<\/p>\n

A macro buy of Microsoft<\/p>\n

Pershing Square’s Microsoft move became public knowledge in May, and like most of the company’s buy-ins, it was a doozy. The company bought more than 5.65 million shares, worth nearly $2.1 billion as of the end of March. <\/p>\n

Subsequently, shifting its tech allocation, Pershing Square sold its relatively small holding in Google parent Alphabet to load up on a bit more Microsoft. This brought the company’s holding in the Windows maker to slightly over 6.2 million shares as of the end of June, worth $2.3 billion. <\/p>\n

\"Microsoft<\/p>\n

Today’s Change<\/p>\n

(-0.80%) $-3.97<\/p>\n

Current Price<\/p>\n

$493.78<\/p>\n

Key Data Points<\/p>\n

Market Cap<\/p>\n

$3.7TMarket cap calculated using publicly traded shares outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded shares. Implied market cap may vary.<\/p>\n

Day’s Range<\/p>\n

$491.10 – $498.65<\/p>\n

52wk Range<\/p>\n

$349.20 – $553.72<\/p>\n

Volume<\/p>\n

39.6M<\/p>\n

Avg Vol<\/p>\n

34.1M<\/p>\n

Gross Margin<\/p>\n

67.94%<\/p>\n

Dividend Yield<\/p>\n

0.74%<\/p>\n

Leaning into tech has been a key plank in Pershing Square’s investment strategy of late. The quartet of sector stocks the company held at the end of last year — Alphabet, Uber, Meta Platforms, and Amazon — accounted for 40% of the portfolio in dollar terms.<\/p>\n

Ackman’s letter to shareholders covering Pershing Square’s inaugural quarter as a publicly traded company explained the reasons. He took pains to note that in the first half of this year, two of the 24 industry groups comprising S&P 500 index components were responsible for 85% of the index’s year-to-date gains — semiconductors and IT hardware, foundational members of the broad tech sector. <\/p>\n

Squaring with the strategy<\/p>\n

In that letter, Ackman also enumerated Pershing Square’s core investment principles. The company is always on the lookout for stocks that “are simple, predictable, and free cash flow-generative, with strong competitive positions, minimal financial leverage and capital markets dependency, and are run by excellent management teams.” <\/p>\n

While I’m not convinced all of that applies to every one of the four tech holdings, I’d say the better large companies in the sector tick each box, Microsoft included.<\/p>\n

So is Ackman’s current faith in tech justified? I would say so.<\/p>\n

After all, the artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> revolution, despite its fits and starts, continues to intensify and looks basically unstoppable (despite the recent gloomy pronouncements of several high-profile developers). Also, the ever-increasing utility of tech solutions for all manner of users, from the individual to the most influential global company, will keep customer demand high. <\/p>\n

And, at the center of it all will be the tried, tested, and tenacious U.S. tech industry. Barring some catastrophic meltdown, then, I’d expect habitual buy-and-holder Pershing Square to keep a tight grip on its current sector holdings for a while, perhaps adding one or a few names in coming quarters. Ackman and company are basically tech-heads these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, Pershing Square (PS +13.69%) founder and CEO Bill Ackman piled into a stock well-known not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-622424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}