Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman unveils 6 new stocks he's betting on

Bill Ackman took advantage of the stock market roller coaster ride this summer to add six new stocks to Pershing Square's portfolio last quarter.

In his quarterly letter to investors on the fund's performance, the billionaire hedge fund manager noted that the AI-driven gains year to date have created a "highly attractive environment" to put money to work in other parts of the market. In May, Ackman announced a new investment in Microsoft, flagging it as a major AI winner, but his latest additions are less focused on Big Tech.

Ackman said that the firm is constantly on the lookout for investments 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."

The new investments add to existing positions in companies like Microsoft, Uber, Amazon, and Meta.

Here are the new stocks Ackman added to his fund's portfolio in the second quarter.

Visa and Mastercard

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• Ticker: V and MA
• Year to date return: +3%, -2%
• Ackman's Thesis: Ackman sees a valuable buying opportunity in the two leading credit card companies. He said that in his firm's view, Visa and Mastecard are two of the world's highest quality businesses and perfectly fit the Pershing Square Capital criteria.
  
  "Both are capital light 'toll-takers' that earn a nominal fee on each transaction without taking any material risk and are natural beneficiaries of higher inflation," he said.

Intercontinental Exchange

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• Ticker: ICE
• Year to date return: -6%
• Ackman's Thesis: Ackman sees Intercontinental Exchange, the exchange operator that owns of the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges and clearing houses, as a likely AI beneficiary, as the fast-moving technology continues to drive and reshape securities trading.
  
  "In ICE we see a classic, simple, predictable, free-cash-flow-generative business that has sold off on concerns we view as unwarranted, a setup that has proven highly profitable for prior Pershing Square investments," he noted.

Netflix

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• Ticker: NFLX
• Year to date return: -18%
• Ackman's Thesis: Pershing Square had briefly invested in Netflix in 2022, but Ackman is more bullish now, due to the streaming giant's status as a dominant force in content streaming, even as the stock stumbles in 2026.
  
  "Netflix has since effectively won the streaming wars," he said. "Its subscriber base now exceeds any competitor's by a wide margin, and that scale is self-reinforcing. Netflix can outspend rivals on content while spreading the cost across the industry's largest user base, improving both the value proposition for subscribers and profitability for the company."

S&P Global

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• Ticker: SPGI
• Year to date return: -17%
• Ackman's Thesis: Ackman said that his team has admired the market intelligence company for decades and opted to invest after it fell 25% in the February SaaSpocalypse that was first sparked by new tools from Anthropic and fears of widespread disruption to software makers' businesses.
  
  "Despite broad-based concerns of AI disintermediation in the company's Market Intelligence segment," he stated, "we believe the market overestimates the portion of segment profits susceptible to AI disruption and 21 underestimates the potential for AI to accelerate demand for S&P's proprietary and curated structured data as LLM-based workflows become increasingly important.

Alcon

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• Ticker: ALC
• Year to date return: -8%
• Ackman's Thesis: The eye care company may not be as well known as Pershing Square's other new investments, but Ackman sees significant upside potential due to rising demand for its services fueled by America's aging population, as well as rising incomes. The hedge funder noted that Alcon's earnings have risen at an 8% compounded rate since the company's spin off from Novartis in 2019, and his team maintains that the market is underestimating its growth potential