Where these numbers come from

A hedge fund is a big pot of money from wealthy people and institutions, like university endowments, run by a professional investor who tries to make it grow. They charge high fees, and you usually need millions of dollars to join. The name comes from the early days, when many tried to protect, or “hedge,” against losses. Today it just means a private fund with few limits on what it can buy.

A few funds here are different. Akre runs a fund sold to the public that trades on the U.S. stock market. Fundsmith runs one sold to the public in the UK and some other countries, which people in the U.S. usually can’t buy. We follow them because they file the same report and have long public records. Duquesne is a family office: since 2010 it has managed only Stanley Druckenmiller’s own money, so its long-run result is from the hedge fund he closed that year.

Any fund manager with $100 million or more in U.S.-listed stocks, in the U.S. or abroad, must file a public report every three months with the SEC, the government agency that watches over investing. The report is called a 13F. It lists each of those stocks and how many shares the fund owns. We read each new 13F and compare it with the one before, so we can tell you what they bought and sold.

6 of the 23 funds we follow don’t file a 13F. For them, we use the letters they write to their investors: Arquitos, Laughing Water, Alluvial, Bireme, Kingdom Capital and Saga Partners. A letter names some of what a fund owns, often with the manager’s reasons, but not how many shares, so those pages show less. Every holding from a letter links to the letter it came from.

Funds get 45 days after each quarter ends to file. So what a fund owned on June 30 might not be public until August 14. By then, they may have bought or sold more. New reports reach Whalewatch with our next update of the app and the site. Think of it as a snapshot, not a live feed.

Next to each stock on a fund’s page you’ll see a number like 17.4%. That’s how much of the fund’s reported stock money sits in that one company: $17 of every $100. The bigger the number, the bigger the bet.

It only counts what’s in the report. Cash, most bonds and investments outside the U.S. aren’t in it, so it’s a share of their stock money, not of everything they have. Options are left out too: they’re contracts on a price, not shares the fund owns. For funds that report through letters, it’s whatever the letter says, and “not disclosed” when the letter doesn’t say.

Funds don’t have to publish their results. The returns we show come from news reports and the letters funds send their investors. We show each one exactly as reported and link the source next to it; we can’t check them ourselves. If a fund’s result isn’t reported, it isn’t ranked, but you can still see what it owns.

To make a result easy to picture, we turn it into dollars: up 24% means $1,000 grew to $1,240.

Read the small print beside each number. Results don’t all cover the same dates: one fund may report to the end of June, another to the end of September, so each one shows its own. Some are after fees (what investors kept) and some are before fees (what the investments earned); we say which when the source does. “Long run” results are an average for each year over at least 7 years, so one lucky year counts for less.

For a yardstick, we show how the S&P 500, the 500 biggest U.S. companies, did over the same dates. People use it as a stand-in for “the market”. Our S&P 500 numbers count price changes only, not dividends (the cash some companies pay their owners), so the market’s full return was a little higher. The index data is © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC; we get it from FRED, run by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Fundsmith reports its results in British pounds, so we show them in pounds (£1,000 instead of $1,000). We don’t set them beside the S&P 500, which is in dollars: changes in the exchange rate alone would skew the comparison.

“Biggest” on Top funds ranks the funds by how much money they manage for their investors. Most firms that invest other people’s money must file a public form called Form ADV, and update it at least once a year. It says how much money they manage, how many people work there and roughly how many investors they have. We show each firm’s latest form and its date. We last checked for new ones on October 13, 2026.

Not every number is the same kind, so each row says which one it is. TCI files only part of the form, which leaves out the money it manages, so we show the money in its funds instead. Duquesne files no Form ADV, so we show the U.S. stocks on its 13F, which leave out everything else it owns.

For Fundsmith and Akre, most of the money comes from investors the form doesn’t count, such as people who buy a fund sold to the public. Their rows say so, because the number of investors we show covers only part of the money.

Bigger doesn’t mean better. Size says nothing about how a fund did: the money grows when its investments do well, but also when investors put more in. And investor counts are approximate: the form counts the investors in each fund, so a person in two of a firm’s funds counts twice.

A 13F only covers U.S.-listed stocks and a few similar things. It doesn’t show bets that a price will fall (called “shorting”), most bonds, cash, investments outside the U.S. or stakes in private companies. So a fund’s real picture can look quite different.

Some of the best-known names, like Citadel, Bridgewater, D. E. Shaw and Millennium, do file 13Fs. But their reports list thousands of positions, many of them short-term trades or hedges for bets the report doesn’t show, so they can’t tell you what made them money.

So we follow funds whose reports show real, lasting bets: a manager buys a company and holds it. That’s the kind of list you can learn from.

Each company’s page has a Company Health score from 0 to 100. It’s a quick check of the business, made from the yearly reports the company files with the SEC. We ask four plain questions and give each up to 25 points:

The points add up to the score: “Fragile” below 25, “Weak” 25 to 44, “Mixed” 45 to 64, “Healthy” 65 to 79 and “Very healthy” 80 or more. If a question can’t be answered, for example because a company doesn’t sell much yet, the score uses the other three. The page also shows the sales, profit and spare cash behind it, year by year, and what the company owns and owes.

What the score isn’t: a rating of the stock, or advice. A healthy business can have expensive shares and a weak one cheap shares. The score says nothing about the share price or whether to buy or sell.

Some companies don’t get a score. Banks, insurers, investment firms, property companies and shell companies (set up to buy a business) keep accounts that hold other people’s money or the debts of the businesses they own, which makes these four questions misleading. Bundles of many stocks (ETFs) aren’t companies at all. And a few companies don’t file yearly figures with the SEC that we can read.

Where it comes from: each company’s yearly reports on the SEC’s EDGAR database (forms 10-K, 20-F or 40-F), up to six years of them, exactly as the company reported them and in the money it reports in. We collected them on October 12, 2026.

You usually can’t invest in these funds directly. The $1,000 is just a way to picture how they did. Copying them isn’t a plan on its own: professionals lose money too, they bought at different prices, and you’re seeing their moves months late. Use this to learn and get ideas, not as a shopping list. If you’re deciding what to do with your own money, talk to a licensed financial adviser.

Hedge fund

A big pot of money from wealthy people and institutions, like university endowments, run by a professional investor who tries to make it grow. You usually need millions of dollars to join.

Family office

A firm that invests one wealthy family’s own money, not money from outside investors.

Share (or stock)

A small piece of a company. One share of Amazon makes you a tiny part-owner.

Stock split

When a company turns each share into several cheaper ones (in a 4-for-1 split, 1 share becomes 4), or several shares into one (a reverse split). What the shares are worth in total doesn’t change.

Ticker

The short code a stock trades under, like AMZN for Amazon.

SEC

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees investing.

13F

The report big funds file every quarter listing their U.S. stocks.

Form ADV

The public form firms that invest other people’s money file, and update at least once a year. It says how much money they manage, how many people work there and roughly how many investors they have.

Money it manages

All the money a firm invests for others, as it reported on its Form ADV. It goes up and down with the investments, not only when investors put money in or take it out.

Quarter

Three months. A year has four: Jan–Mar, Apr–Jun, Jul–Sep, Oct–Dec.

Fund letter

A note a fund sends its investors, often every quarter, about how it did and what it owns. Some funds publish theirs.

Share of their money

How much of a fund’s reported stock money sits in one company. 17% means $17 of every $100.

Return

How much money grew or shrank. +10% means $1,000 became $1,100.

Sales (or revenue)

The money a company takes in from what it sells, before paying any of its costs.

Profit (or net income)

What’s left of sales after every cost, interest and tax. If costs were bigger, it’s a loss.

Spare cash (or free cash flow)

The cash a company’s business brought in during the year, minus what it spent on buildings and equipment.

Fiscal year

The 12 months a company uses for its accounts. Most end in December; Apple’s ends in September, so its “FY2025” ran to September 2025.

Company Health

Our 0 to 100 summary of a company’s yearly reports: does it make money, is it growing, can it handle what it owes, does it bring in spare cash. It’s about the business, not the stock.

Dividend

Cash some companies pay their owners, often every three months. Our S&P 500 numbers leave it out.

Before and after fees

Funds charge for their work, for example 2% of the money each year plus a share of the gains. “Before fees” is what the investments earned; “after fees” is what investors kept.

S&P 500

The 500 biggest U.S. companies. People use it as a yardstick for “the market”.

ETF

A fund you can buy like a stock, holding many companies at once.

Option (call or put)

A contract that bets on a price going up (call) or down (put), instead of owning the shares. Options aren’t counted in share of their money.

Warrant

A right to buy the stock later at a set price. It isn’t a share yet, so it isn’t counted in share of their money or as owning the company.

Preferred shares

A special kind of share that pays a fixed income, a bit like a loan. We count only ordinary shares as owning a company, so these aren’t in share of their money.

Bond

A loan to the company. The company pays interest and returns the money later. It isn’t a share, so it isn’t counted in share of their money.

Betting against (shorting)

They profit if the price falls. It’s called “shorting”: they borrow shares, sell them, and hope to buy them back cheaper later.

Not disclosed

The fund’s letter names this company but doesn’t say how much of the fund is in it.