Billionaire Tepper's fund soared 32% in the first half of 2026. Where did he invest?

Billionaire David Tepper’s hedge fund, Appaloosa Management, which manages $23 billion in assets, posted a return of 32% in the first half of 2026. It achieved all of this growth in the second quarter, according to Bloomberg, citing a source familiar with the fund’s results—who said these results were driven by Appaloosa’s bets on the memory chip sector.

By comparison, the Nasdaq Composite rose 11.1% over the same period, while the S&P 500 rose 9.5%. Since the beginning of the year, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has surged 75%, gaining nearly 55% over the past three months, however, in recent days, amid investor concerns about big tech companies’ massive investments in the AI sector, it has been subject to volatility: on July 7, it fell by nearly 4%.

Appaloosa’s largest capital gains in the first half of the year came from investments in memory chip manufacturers: Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia, and SanDisk. As of the close of trading on July 6, their shares had risen 190%, 109%, 196%, 470%, and 393%, respectively, amid frenzied demand for computing power for artificial intelligence, Bloomberg notes.

All five companies share a common factor: high demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and NAND flash memory, which are essential for building data centers, according to Investing.com. In this market, SK Hynix has become the primary supplier of HBM chips to Nvidia, while Micron has been aggressively expanding its own production capacity for similar products. Kioxia, which went public in late 2024, and SanDisk, spun off from Western Digital, rounded out Appaloosa’s portfolio in the NAND segment.

These results are particularly impressive given that, over the past few months, Tepper has maintained an average cash allocation of about 40% in his portfolio, explains Investing.com. Such a high cash position typically significantly holds back overall returns.

The fund’s strong performance in the first half of the year continued its streak of solid results, Investing.com adds. In 2024, Appaloosa’s returns rose by nearly 26 percent, and by the end of 2025, they had gained another 25 percent, demonstrating double-digit growth every year since at least 2021.

The fund's current performance figures are shown net of fees, as approximately 90% of Appaloosa's capital is owned by Tepper himself and other insiders, Bloomberg notes. A spokesperson for the billionaire declined to comment to Bloomberg.

According to Forbes, Tepper's net worth is estimated at $23.7 billion.

According to the latest data disclosed by Appaloosa, as of the end of the first quarter of 2026, the fund’s assets were spread across 31 positions, with nearly three-quarters of its capital concentrated in ten securities. These included shares of Amazon (15% of Appaloosa’s portfolio), Micron (9.5%), Alphabet (8.4%), Uber (7.7%), and Taiwan Semiconductor (7.6%).

Early this year, the fund booked profits on the leaders of the previous tech rally, partially reducing its stakes in Nvidia and AMD, and virtually liquidating its positions in a number of large companies: for example, Appaloosa’s stake in Microsoft was reduced by 82%, and Alibaba shares worth $228 million were sold.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor