David Tepper's Appaloosa: a contrarian who now concentrates on Amazon, Micron and TSMC
A famous buyer of fear, known for buying banks in 2009, now runs a portfolio of about thirty stocks. Five quarters of Appaloosa's filings, and what it means to invest against the crowd.
Who he is and why people copy him
David Tepper founded Appaloosa Management in 1993 after working in credit and distressed debt at Goldman Sachs. He became famous for buying the bonds and shares of banks in 2009, when most investors were afraid of them, and for the very large profit that followed. For many years he ran one of the most successful hedge funds in the world. Appaloosa is reported to have turned into a family office in 2019 and now manages mostly his own money.
That is why the quarterly filing matters to people who follow him: it is one of the few windows onto how a professional contrarian is positioned today.
The ideas behind the portfolio
Tepper's style is to look for situations where fear has pushed a price far below what the business or the bond is likely to be worth, and to buy when others are selling. He pays close attention to what central banks and governments are doing, because policy decides whether a frightening situation turns into a disaster or into a recovery. He is willing to hold large positions and to change them quickly when the picture changes.
The idea has a long history: Benjamin Graham's Mr. Market, who sometimes offers shares at absurdly low prices, and Seth Klarman's patience with forced sellers both rest on the same observation. What Tepper adds is speed and a macro lens.
What a Form 13F does and does not show
The filing lists the US-listed shares, funds and options held on the last day of the quarter. For Appaloosa that omits the bonds, loans and other debt where Tepper made his name, as well as any holdings outside US markets. Some Chinese companies appear because they are listed in the US as depositary receipts. Options are shown at the value of the shares they cover, so a put can look like a large long position.
The report is up to 45 days old when it appears, and a manager as active as Tepper may have sold or bought since.
The portfolio over the last five quarters
From June 2025 to June 2026 the reported portfolio went from $6.45 billion to $7.73 billion, with a low of $5.93 billion in March 2026. The number of positions fell from 38 to 27, and the portfolio became markedly more concentrated: the ten largest were 64.6% of the book at the start and 78.9% at the end, and the effective number of positions fell from 16.9 to 12.1.
In June 2025 the biggest holdings were Alibaba (12.4%), UnitedHealth (11.9%), Amazon (9.2%), Vistra (5.4%) and NRG Energy (4.9%). A year later the list is led by Amazon (15.4%), Micron (14.6%), TSMC (10.2%), Alphabet (8.5%) and Uber (7.2%). UnitedHealth and Alibaba, the old anchors, have left the top, and the new leaders are mostly large technology and semiconductor companies.
Ten largest positions at the end of the latest quarter (2026-06-30) and the same names at the start of the period (2025-06-30), as a share of the US-listed stocks in the report (27 positions, $7.7 billion in total).
| Position | 2026-06-30 | 2025-06-30 |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 15.4% | 9.2% |
| Micron | 14.6% | 1.6% |
| TSMC | 10.2% | 3.6% |
| Alphabet | 8.5% | 4.1% |
| Uber Technologies | 7.2% | 4.0% |
| iShares Inc ETFs | 6.3% | — |
| Meta Platforms | 4.9% | 4.6% |
| Vistra | 4.5% | 5.4% |
| Nvidia | 3.9% | 4.3% |
| Nrg Energy | 3.3% | 4.9% |
| Ten largest together | 78.9% | 64.6% |
What changed quarter by quarter
In the quarter to September 2025 UnitedHealth was cut by 10.9 percentage points of the book, Whirlpool grew by 5.4 points to 5.9% and Alibaba rose to 15.6%, while Intel (2.8%) was closed and AMD (2.1%) opened. In the quarter to December Micron rose by 5.0 points to 6.2% and Alphabet by 3.5 to 8.1%, and Alibaba was cut by 4.7 points.
In the quarter to March 2026 Amazon rose by 7.9 points to 15.2% and Uber by 5.5 to 7.7%, while American Airlines (3.1%), Owens Corning (1.5%) and Mohawk (1.1%) were closed and Sandisk (3.0%) opened. In the quarter to June 2026 Micron grew by 5.1 points to 14.6% and TSMC by 2.6 to 10.2%. Sandisk (3.0%), Corning (2.6%) and PDD (1.5%) were closed, and Boeing (2.2%), CoreWeave (1.4%) and a put on Apple (3.1%) were opened. Alibaba, the biggest holding a year earlier, kept falling. A put is the right to sell: it appears in the report at the value of the shares and does not tell us how much was paid.
Changes between consecutive filings. A share is measured as a part of the reported stock portfolio; it can move because of price changes too, so read it together with the text.
| Quarter end | Positions | Opened | Closed | Biggest rise in share | Biggest fall in share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 38 → 45 | AMD (2.1%), Fiserv (1.6%), American Airlines (1.4%) | Intel (2.8%), Oracle (0.5%), Ke (0.4%) | Whirlpool (+5.4 pp) | Unitedhealth (−10.9 pp) |
| 2025-12-31 | 45 → 39 | iShares Inc ETFs (2.6%), Micron (call) (1.0%), Ball (0.9%) | Fiserv (1.6%), Truist Finl (0.9%), Caesars Entertainment Inc Ne (0.8%) | Micron (+5.0 pp) | Alibaba (−4.7 pp) |
| 2026-03-31 | 39 → 31 | Sandisk (3.0%) | American Airlines (3.1%), Owens Corning (1.5%), Mohawk Inds (1.1%) | Amazon (+7.9 pp) | Alibaba (−3.5 pp) |
| 2026-06-30 | 31 → 27 | Apple (put) (3.1%), Boeing (2.2%), American Airlines (1.8%) | Sandisk (3.0%), Corning (2.6%), Pdd (1.5%) | Micron (+5.1 pp) | Alibaba (−4.8 pp) |
What to take away, and what to doubt
The lesson is that contrarian does not mean permanent. Tepper's current book looks nothing like the one a year earlier, and it is not a collection of unloved stocks: Amazon, Micron and TSMC are among the most popular companies in the market. What he shares with the textbook contrarian is the willingness to move a large share of the book in a quarter and to take big positions.
The doubts are the usual ones. The famous trade of 2009 was made in bonds and banks, which a stock filing does not show. A portfolio built from three or four very large positions has little room for error. And a record built in distressed credit does not prove that the same skill works in large technology stocks.
Where it meets our bots
Tepper buys what is hated and then rides it. Our nearest mechanical cousin is the bot that buys sharp short-term dips of the S&P 500, which acts on fear but ignores the reasons for it. Our momentum bots do the opposite: they hold what is already strong. The current Appaloosa book, with Micron and TSMC leading, looks more like the second approach.
All our accounts are virtual and public. The guides below explain each rule.
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