Investing

3 Investments Shark Tank's Mark Cuban Is Fanboying Over Right Now

Chris MacDonald

Published: November 5, 2024 11:00 am

Mark Cuban is a world-famous investor known for his time as a Shark Tank personality and many of his entrepreneurial ventures which led to his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA. Cuban just recently sold off his majority stake in the Mavericks for a hefty profit last year, but he’s now heavily involved in a number of other businesses that are certainly worth noting. I’m going to discuss a few of those in this article.

Cuban’s story is one of fame and fortune, exemplifying the incredible value that can be created in America as an entrepreneur. Mr. Cuban first gained fame by selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999. In 2000, he bought the Dallas Mavericks for $285 million and recently sold his majority stake to a Las Vegas casino family for $3.5 billion, pocketing over $3 billion. Cuban now retains a minor stake and control over basketball operations, aiming to boost the team’s revenue, but his focus is on creating value in the prescription drugs market with his Cost Plus Drugs business, and growing his portfolio of stocks which he’s discussed in interviews in the past. 

Here are three of his top holdings he’s talked about openly, and why I think they’re incredible picks for the long-term investor looking to retain exposure to high-growth tech companies in this current marketplace.

Key Points About This Article:

• Mark Cuban is an iconic businessman who has leveraged his success in a number of entrepreneurial endeavors to grow his net worth to billionaire status over time.
• While he continues to reinvest in running new enterprises, here are a few of his publicly-discussed equity holdings that may be worth considering.
• If you’re looking for some stocks with huge potential, make sure to grab a free copy of our brand-new “The Next NVIDIA” report. It features a software stock we’re confident has 10X potential.

Amazon (AMZN)

Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is well-known as an e-commerce leader, and a company that’s a core portfolio holding for millions of investors, for good reason. The mega-cap tech giant has long been a holding of Cuban’s, with the mogul revealing to Fox Business that Amazon was his largest holding at the time, with Cuban holding nearly $1 billion in shares. If he’s held that position to today, it’s worth a lot, lot more. 

As his portfolio is not publicly-disclosed, it’s hard to know how much he’s kept and how much he still owns. But it’s clear that the cash flow from his other businesses likely provides a good enough living that he’s not forced to tap into his portfolio much, so I’d reckon this remains a top holding of his.

There are certainly reasons for Cuban to hold. The company’s AWS cloud division achieved 19% revenue growth last quarter, marking its third consecutive acceleration. This division also saw its operating margins rise to 35.5% from 24.2% a year ago. Though not the fastest-growing cloud provider, AWS’s scale makes its $100 billion revenue run impressive. Amazon continues to focus on countering Microsoft’s AI lead by backing Anthropic, creator of the Claude LLMs, and offers broad AI solutions through Bedrock. Known for scaling efficiently, Amazon leverages its homegrown Graviton chips to reduce costs versus traditional x86 solutions.

CEO Andy Jassy’s strategy to boost Amazon’s e-commerce profitability has succeeded, with North American and International margins improving each quarter since Q4 2022. A regional delivery system lowered costs, and paid units have grown faster than shipping expenses since Q3 2022. Previously doubted, Amazon’s e-commerce operations are now profitable with rising margins.

In my view, this could be one of Cuban’s most prescient investments. I hope he’s held on, and I’m sure he has. 

Nvidia (NVDA)

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) doesn’t need an introduction to most investors. The company develops some of the most important and groundbreaking graphics and computing chips to the market, powering the AI revolution. For a tech visionary like Cuban, and a man who’s clearly a fan of what artificial intelligence technology can bring to the table, it’s no surprise to me that he’s disclosed ownership of Nvidia in the past.

The company continues to provide record quarter after quarter, with the company’s most recent Q2 results showing revenue growth of 122% to $30 billion and profits rising 168%. Despite these results, Nvidia’s stock price showed little reaction, indicating how perfectly the market is pricing this stock. However, at its October AI Summit, CEO Jensen Huang unveiled new use cases, like autonomous robots, and introduced Blackwell-based chips. These next-gen chips, which cut LLM training costs by 25x, are already sold out for the next year due to overwhelming demand.

Nvidia emerged as a top-performing AI stock, not for selling AI software, but for supplying essential GPUs that power the AI industry. Its advanced chips, crucial for processing vast data in AI model training, are unmatched by competitors, making Nvidia indispensable to the sector’s growth.

For long-term investors like Cuban looking to bet on AI as a sustainable trend, this position doesn’t surprise me. At some point, Cuban may sell – he’s sold off many of his businesses near the top, so when he does announce a sale, I’d pay attention. But for now, this remains a top stock every investor is going to watch, and I’m not surprised to learn that Cuban is bullish on this name as well. 

Alphabet (GOOG)

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) rounds out this list of publicly-disclosed Mark Cuban holdings, and it’s a great company to discuss. Another leader in AI technology, Alphabet is an absolute advertising behemoth, dominating the world of search for decades. The company’s entrenched position in this core market makes it a stock I think warrants investment at current levels, as does its relatively favorable valuation (compared to other mega-cap tech peers).

Like Amazon, Google Cloud continues to provide significant growth for the advertising giant. Along with a whopping 27.4% share of the digital ad market in 2024, the company holds significant market share in the global cloud market, allowing this company to earn some of the most stable (and faster-growing) cash flows in the tech sector.

Until that reality changes, this is a stock I think investors would be best off owning. The company’s most recent quarterly year-over-year earnings growth of more than 30% highlights just how powerful a profit machine Alphabet is. I’d own this stock for the long-term at its current multiple of just 19-times forward earnings (or a PEG ratio of just 0.6).