There's a classic scene in Rounders where Matt Damon's character says: "If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker."
Well. Every quarter, when the 13F filings land on the SEC's desk, we get to peek — on a delay, of course — at where the real sharks put their money. Not the Instagram influencers hawking $200 courses. Not the "analysts" who've never bought a stock with their own cash. I'm talking about the guys with real skin in the game. Billionaires. Family offices. People who screw up and lose hundreds of millions — out of their own accounts.
And what the fourth-quarter 2025 filings show is a feast of bold, divergent, and in some cases, beautifully contradictory bets.
Cooperman bought English soccer (and mortgages)
Leon Cooperman, the old Wall Street wolf running Omega Advisors, made headlines for increasing his position in Manchester United. Yes, the soccer club. His stake is now worth $46.5 million. Before any fan panics thinking the guy's going to turn Old Trafford into a glorified hedge fund — relax. He himself said it's a passive investment.
But Cooperman's heaviest move was something else: over $375 million in shares of Rocket Companies, the mortgage lending firm. It became the firm's largest position, worth nearly $407 million. The guy is betting hard on the American mortgage market. A bold wager in an environment where rates are still painfully high? Or does he know something the market hasn't priced in yet? That's the million-dollar question.
Tepper and Druckenmiller: chips and energy — the smart money nailed it
David Tepper, of Appaloosa, tripled his position in Micron — the memory chip maker powering AI data centers. The position hit $428 million and became the portfolio's largest holding. And guess what: since the start of 2026, Micron is already up about 50%. The guy literally printed money.
Stanley Druckenmiller, living market legend and Soros's former right-hand man, opened a new position in Bloom Energy, a fuel cell company. The stock is already up over 100% on the year. One hundred percent, damn it. While retail investors were debating meme stocks on Reddit, Druckenmiller was building a position in the energy future.
Bitcoin and crypto: not every billionaire is infallible
Now, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.
WIT LLC, the Walton family's investment vehicle (yes, the Walmart people), allocated $4 million to the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. Sounds gutsy, right? Well, the ETF tanked 21% on the year. Sure, $4 million is less than 1% of the portfolio — that's coffee money for these folks. But still: red is red.
Alan Parker, the duty-free mogul, increased his Coinbase position by 44%. The result? Down 18% since January. Crypto remains that roller coaster that doesn't warn you when the drop is coming.
The Mag 7 war: everyone picking sides
This is where things get interesting. Druckenmiller increased his Amazon exposure by 69% and exited Meta completely. Meanwhile, the Rausing family, the discreet billionaires behind Tetra Pak, did the opposite: they trimmed positions in Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, and Meta. Sold everything Mag 7.
Who's right? Probably neither of them. Or both. The market is a mess like that.
Dalio: 90% in gold. Ninety percent.
And then there's Ray Dalio. The guy who's been screaming about an AI bubble and capital wars for months. What did he do? He dumped nearly $440 million into the SPDR Gold Trust — which represents 90% of the portfolio of his Marino Management vehicle.
Ninety percent. In gold.
That's not diversification. That's a declaration of war against the fiat system. It's a man looking at everything the market is doing and saying: "I don't trust any of this."
And as he told CNBC himself: "People make the mistake of thinking whether gold will go up or down. The right question is: what percentage of my portfolio should be in gold?"
What does this mean for you?
Look, you don't have $400 million to park in gold. I know. But the lesson here isn't to copy the positions — because by the time you read the 13F, the trade already happened months ago.
The lesson is something else: the biggest investors on the planet radically disagree with each other. Tepper is betting on AI through semiconductors. Dalio is betting against everything through gold. Druckenmiller is buying Amazon and clean energy. The Rausing family is selling Big Tech.
If the billionaires can't agree, why the hell do you think that YouTube guru has the right answer?
Think about that before you follow the next "hot signal" on Telegram.
