The big name stock pickers changing tack

Life hasn’t gotten any easier for active fund managers in recent years, with a handful of companies continuing to dominate markets and investors increasingly focused on the singular theme of artificial intelligence (AI).

That has in turn prompted some big changes from well-known professional stock pickers. While the most prominent example, Terry Smith, is already well discussed, some other changes and how they affect your underlying investments are worth noting. 

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Lesser-known changes

“With hindsight, we underestimated the potential persistence of the momentum rally,” is a quote that some might wrongly assume to have come from Smith, given that he has recently overhauled his fund to account for the momentum factor. But this actually comes from a different but widely followed global investment team.

The quote comes from the interim report covering the second half of 2025 for the JPMorgan Global Growth & Income Ord (LSE:JGGI) investment trust. 

Explaining a period of underperformance versus global markets, the team noted that they “followed the valuation signals of the process too closely and allowed the portfolio’s underweight exposure to momentum to become too large”.

The fund, which tends to have exposure to a variety of different investment styles but has had plenty of exposure to US tech, had previously suffered thanks to not holding Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO).

The team therefore said that it would seek to “better manage portfolio underweights” relative to the index, adding: “The high concentration of tech mega-cap stocks in the index now means they can significantly impact portfolio performance, making it essential to closely monitor and quickly adapt underweight positions as required.”

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This has resulted in an attempt to moderate such underweight positions when such stocks surge and, for example, adding Alphabet and Broadcom to the fund. The team said that it would hold “stocks we believe to be long-term structural winners along with near-term outperformers”.

The fund is still heavily exposed to the biggest companies in the world, with its top 10 holdings including NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Mastercard Inc Class A (NYSE:MA), Alphabet, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd ADR (NYSE:TSM), and Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), as well as ASML Holding NV (EURONEXT:ASML), Safran SA (EURONEXT:SAF) and NextEra Energy Inc (NYSE:NEE). 

Picks and shovels

To touch on another big fund making changes, the Rathbone Global Opportunities Fund S Acc (BH0P2M9) team notes that 2026 has been the busiest year for portfolio turnover in the fund’s 25-year history. 

Manager James Thomson outlined some of these changes in a recent interview with interactive investor. 

The team has sold some of its consumer-facing software businesses (including Intuit Inc (NASDAQ:INTU)), information services companies and private equity “where growth rates may be impacted by AI competitive alternatives”.

The team, in turn, has invested in “HALO” (hard assets, low obsolescence) companies, which are viewed as less vulnerable to disruption by AI.

“New stocks such as electrical infrastructure contractor Quanta Services Inc (NYSE:PWR), aerospace contractor Howmet Aerospace Inc (NYSE:HWM), mining equipment supplier Sandvik AB (OMX:SAND), digger-maker Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:CAT) and two others join names that were already in the fund, including diversified industrial and aerospace engineer Parker Hannifin Corp (NYSE:PH) and Amphenol Corp Class A (NYSE:APH),” the team said in a recent commentary.

“Resource independence and protectionism will be a key theme over the coming years as the most powerful nations increasingly hoard critical minerals for their technology and electrification infrastructure buildout. 

“We remain wary of investing in pure commodity stocks as they are often at the mercy of a single commodity price and have high project risk. We have taken a less risky picks n’ shovels approach.”

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The team has also taken an approach many stock pickers are currently following, of buying into companies that are perceived as AI victims but where the threat may be overestimated.

“We have used some of the hysterical AI disruption risk narrative to buy holdings where we believe they are more protected - or in fact benefit from AI adoption,” the team said.

“An example is CrowdStrike Holdings Inc Class A (NASDAQ:CRWD), which sold off in the software meltdown, but which should see resilient or even accelerating cyber growth rates as AI cannot guard itself. 

“But we have also added some non-AI related businesses in our defensive sleeve to provide less-tech-correlated growth - examples include energy drinks maker Monster Beverage Corp (NASDAQ:MNST) and cosmetics business L'Oreal SA (EURONEXT:OR).” 

The big hitters

Another big name to enact changes is Bill Ackman, who added six stocks to his portfolio in the first half of 2026. That, in the context of the fund tending to hold between 10 and 12 shares, is a notable level of change.

Ackman has added payment processors Visa Inc Class A (NYSE:V) and Mastercard to the fund, as well as S&P Global Inc (NYSE:SPGI), Intercontinental Exchange Inc (NYSE:ICE) and eye-care company Alcon Inc (NYSE:ALC). 

He has also returned to Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX), which he held briefly in 2022 before selling out at a deep loss.

Ackman has already added Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon and Meta Platforms Inc Class A (NASDAQ:META) to the portfolio in recent history, and recent changes have invited claims that the fund has become “mainstream”.

Whether or not this is a valid criticism, it does show that fund managers are increasingly divided on the US tech majors, with some investors worrying about the hefty AI spending of names such as Amazon and Meta and others (including Ackman) believing these worries are overblown, and that such AI ambitions will pay off.

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The Terry Smith overhaul of Fundsmith Equity I Acc (B41YBW7) is already well discussed, and time will tell whether a switch to more momentum-focused investing will pay off. 

In a less prominent development, it’s worth noting that Nick Train recently added two new holdings, yet to be revealed, to his UK funds.

Train rarely makes any portfolio changes, meaning such activity is worth observing even if it’s likely prompted by cash generated from the sale of Schroders (LSE:SDR).

Train tends to be coy about new holdings until he has built up a big enough position. But in the July update for Finsbury Growth & Income Ord (LSE:FGT) he noted: “We initiated two new holdings – so far in very small size. 

“We regard both companies as world-class businesses, in wholly separate industries, one an industrial engineer, the other an important piece of global capital market infrastructure, both with an opportunity to utilise the proprietary data they generate during the course of their normal operations to derive new value for existing customers.”