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The chip king owns a stake in the same stock a billionaire just made his largest holding.

Any poker player will tell you: don’t watch the cards, watch the bet.

Every quarter, the law makes any firm managing over $100 million publish a list of its U.S. stock holdings — the 13F filing. The latest batch shows the holdings as of June 30. And after eight of these letters, you know our warning by heart: a filing tells you what they owned on one day, months ago. It doesn’t tell you what they paid or whether they still own it.

But a 13F does tell you one thing with perfect honesty: how big the bet is. A billionaire can like a hundred stocks. He can only size a few of them. Tonight, three positions from three legends, in three very different sizes — the biggest slot in a $16 billion fund, 5% of a famously careful 83-year-old’s book, and a toehold with a twist.

One more thing they have in common: every one of them trades below the legend’s own June 30 mark today.

Let’s take them one at a time -

Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS) — Recent Price: $221.07

Breakdown: Stephen Mandel is one of the original “Tiger Cubs” — the hedge fund managers trained by the late Julian Robertson — and his Lone Pine Capital runs about $16 billion across 34 stocks. In the second quarter he didn’t just buy Nebius. He made it the biggest position in the entire fund.

Nebius is a landlord for artificial intelligence. It builds data centers packed with Nvidia chips and rents the computing power to companies that need it — Microsoft and Meta are both signed customers. Second-quarter revenue: $582 million, up 454% from a year ago. Its annualized run-rate revenue (plain English: the last month’s sales, multiplied out to a full year) hit $3 billion — up from $1.9 billion just three months earlier. The company expects to control five gigawatts of contracted power by year-end.

Nvidia’s own 13F shows a $329 million stake in Nebius. The company selling the shovels owns a piece of this particular gold miner.

The honest risks? Plenty. Nebius spent $5.7 billion on chips and data centers last quarter against $582 million of revenue — this model devours cash, and the company has sold about $2.8 billion of new stock to help feed it. The stock trades at over 1,300 times trailing earnings, swings 7% in a day, and the COO sold about half his shares on October 5. If AI demand so much as pauses, stocks like this get hit first and hardest.

What you’d pay today: about $221 — roughly 20% below the $276 mark on Mandel’s filing, after a pullback from the stock’s 52-week high near $300. One caution: he bought sometime during the quarter, so his actual cost may be well below the June 30 photo.

Verdict: the biggest conviction bet of 13F season, on sale 20% below the mark — for investors who can stomach the ride.

GPGI, Inc. (GPGI) — Recent Price: $12.60

Breakdown: Leon Cooperman — the 83-year-old who built Goldman Sachs Asset Management and has compounded money for six decades — just made GPGI a top-five position. This is a brand-new, $180 million commitment.

GPGI is the company formerly known as CompoSecure — the maker of those heavy metal credit cards in America’s wallets. In January it bought Husky Technologies, an industrial manufacturer, and took the new name. The card business is humming: the company called its second-quarter CompoSecure results a record, kept full-year guidance of $1.95–2.10 billion in sales and $550–610 million in adjusted EBITDA (a cash-profit measure), and just opened a London design center to chase international demand. At $12.60, you’re paying about 11 times this year’s expected earnings.

So why is the stock down 53% from its 52-week high? In February, a short-seller published a report alleging GPGI overpaid for Husky, and a securities class-action lawsuit followed, claiming the deal was struck partly to generate fees for Resolute, the outside firm that manages the company. Husky’s results have been soft, and the company carries about $2.1 billion of adjusted debt. None of the allegations have been proven — but the lawsuit is live, and it’s the reason the stock is this cheap.

Cooperman watched all of that happen. The short report came out in February. He bought in the quarter that followed.

What you’d pay today: $12.60 — about 20% below the $15.85 June 30 mark on his filing.

Verdict: a genuine conviction bet on a hated, barely-covered stock — the setup with the most upside tonight, and the most ways to be wrong.

Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. (AXTA) — Recent Price: $32.81

Breakdown: By Klarman’s standards this is a starter position — under 1% of Baupost’s $5.4 billion book. But the story is why it’s here, because Klarman didn’t buy a company. He bought a merger.

Axalta makes coatings — the paint on cars rolling off assembly lines and, more importantly, the refinish paint every body shop buys after a fender-bender. In November it agreed to an all-stock “merger of equals” with Dutch giant AkzoNobel: a $25 billion combined coatings company, with $600 million in identified annual cost savings, most expected within three years. Each Axalta share converts into 0.6539 AkzoNobel shares — no fixed cash price, so you’re betting on the combined business.

Since June 30, the deal has only firmed up. Shareholders on both sides have voted yes — Axalta’s approval came August 5 — and the merger has been formally filed with European regulators, with closing expected around year-end into early 2027. Meanwhile the standalone business posted a record quarter: adjusted earnings up 13%, record adjusted EBITDA, and the lowest debt leverage in company history. At $32.81, you pay about 12.5 times this year’s expected earnings — and the recent analyst actions tell the story of a debate: KeyBanc started coverage at Overweight with a $47 target, Bank of America raised to $42, UBS sits at Neutral with $36.

The honest risks? A merger of equals has no safety net — if the deal breaks on regulatory review, or if AkzoNobel’s shares slide, Axalta’s value slides with them. Auto production is soft, and merger costs already dented this year’s net income.

What you’d pay today: $32.81 — about 4% below the $34.22 mark on Klarman’s filing. The smallest discount tonight, and the calmest stock.

Verdict: the most patient man in finance took a seat at the merger table. A sensible, lower-drama way to follow a legend — sized like he sized it.

— The Daily Wall Street Alerts Team

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making any investment decisions.