3 Stocks Billionaire Investor Stephen Mandel Just Bought

In this video, we'll break down three stocks billionaire investor Steven Mandel just bought and why some of the smartest money on Wall Street is positioning around these businesses right now. You'll discover why these companies sit at the center of some of the world's biggest long-term trends, what makes them so difficult to replace, and whether they still deserve a place in your own portfolio after their recent moves. Steven Mandel has built one of the most respected hedge funds in the world by identifying businesses with durable competitive advantages before the broader market fully appreciates their long-term earnings power. His latest 13F filing, reflecting holdings as of March 31st and filed on May 15th, offers a fascinating snapshot of where institutional capital is flowing. Across his largest positions, a clear theme emerges. artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, critical infrastructure, and businesses with powerful competitive modes continue attracting serious capital. And the first company on today's list may be the least glamorous, but it could also be one of the most important. That company is Carpenter Technology, ticker symbol CRS. Most investors will never see one of Carpenter Technologies products. You cannot walk into a store and buy one. You probably cannot recognize one if it were sitting in front of you. Yet without this company, many of the world's most advanced aircraft, defense systems, and medical technologies simply could not exist. That is exactly what makes this business interesting. Carpenter Technology specializes in producing high-performance specialty alloys that operate under conditions where ordinary metals fail. These materials are engineered to withstand tremendous heat, pressure, stress, corrosion, and fatigue. They become essential components inside jet engines, aircraft structures, missile systems, energy equipment, and life-saving medical implants. Think about what that means. When aerospace manufacturers increase production, they need more of carpenters alloys. When governments increase defense spending, they need more of carpenters materials. When medical technology advances, many of those next generation devices require carpenters specialty metals. The company quietly sits at the intersection of several industries that continue growing regardless of short-term market noise. This is not a commodity steel producer competing on price. It is a high value engineering business where customers care much more about reliability and performance than saving a few dollars. Once these materials are certified for critical aerospace or defense applications, switching suppliers becomes extremely difficult. qualification can take years, creating meaningful barriers to entry and giving Carpenter unusually sticky customer relationships. That competitive advantage helps explain why Steven Mandel appears comfortable owning the stock even after its incredible run. Many investors see a stock that's already gone up dramatically and assume they missed the opportunity. Professional investors often ask a different question. Has the business improved faster than the stock price? Looking at Carpenters's recent results, that question becomes very interesting. The company delivered an exceptional third quarter for fiscal 2026. Revenue reached approximately $811.5 million, increasing nearly 12% from a year earlier, while also exceeding Wall Street expectations. More importantly, profitability continued moving in the right direction as adjusted operating margins in its specialty alloys operations segment expanded to an impressive 35.6% from 29.1% one year ago. That marked the 17th consecutive quarter of margin expansion, a remarkable streak that demonstrates consistent operational improvement rather than a one-time event. Even stronger was management's confidence. Instead of simply celebrating a good quarter, leadership raised fullear operating income guidance to between $700 million and $75 million. When management raises guidance after already producing record performance, investors should pay attention. Chief Executive Officer Tony Thei also described aerospace and defense as being at the beginning of its growth cycle. That statement matters. If management truly believes this cycle is still early, then today's earnings power may not represent the peak of what this company can eventually produce. This helps explain why Carpenter has become one of the market's strongest industrial performers. The stock has climbed roughly 53% this year alone and has nearly doubled over the past 12 months. Normally, such gains would make investors nervous, but valuation always depends on earnings power. If profits are growing rapidly enough, a stock can continue creating value even after substantial appreciation. Today, Carpenter trades around 23 times forward earnings. That is certainly not cheap compared with slower growing industrial companies. But it also is not excessive for a business producing record margins, raising guidance, expanding profitability quarter after quarter, and participating in several long-term structural growth markets. Another encouraging sign comes from Wall Street analysts. The overwhelming majority currently rate the shares either buy or strong buy with only one hold recommendation among major analysts, reflecting broad confidence in the company's operating momentum. Still, no investment comes without risk. One challenge facing Carpenter is expectations. The market now understands this story. Investors have recognized the strength of aerospace demand, improving margins, and management execution. Future upside may increasingly depend on continued earnings, surprises, and additional guidance increases rather than simply maintaining current performance. If commercial aerospace production slows unexpectedly or defense budgets become less favorable, investor enthusiasm could cool. That does not necessarily damage the long-term thesis. It simply means expectations have become much higher than they were one year ago. Personally, I find Carpenter particularly interesting because it represents something many portfolios overlook. Everyone wants exposure to exciting technologies. Far fewer investors ask who supplies the critical materials that make those technologies possible. Sometimes the best opportunities sit several layers below the companies receiving all the headlines. Carpenter is not building airplanes. It is supplying materials those airplanes cannot function without. It is not manufacturing missile systems. It provides the specialized alloys that help those systems perform reliably under extreme conditions. That supplier position creates diversified exposure across multiple industries without depending entirely on any single customer or product launch. Those characteristics often produce steadier businesses than investors initially realize. Steven Mandel has built his reputation by identifying businesses with durable competitive advantages and long-run earnings potential rather than simply chasing momentum. Carpenter appears to fit that philosophy remarkably well. It combines specialized manufacturing, meaningful barriers to entry, pricing power, improving margins, strong management execution, and exposure to multiple secular growth trends. The result is a business that looks positioned to benefit as aerospace production expands. Defense investment remains elevated and advanced manufacturing continues demanding increasingly sophisticated materials. Whether the stock delivers another spectacular year remains impossible to predict, but the underlying business appears stronger today than it was a year ago, and management believes the industry's growth cycle still has room to run. That combination is precisely the type of setup that often attracts experienced institutional investors. If this resonates with you, you're exactly who this channel is for. Please hit the like button, share the video, and leave your thoughts in the comments. Subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on the next important financial investing update. Remember to do your own research before you invest in any stock. Every AI model needs electricity 24 hours a day. Every expansion in cloud computing increases demand for energy that can be delivered consistently without interruption. This is where Vistra, ticker symbol VST, enters the picture. Unlike businesses trying to predict future electricity demand, Vistra already owns a massive fleet of power generation assets capable of serving customers today. That distinction is incredibly important. Building new generating capacity is expensive, time-conuming, and heavily regulated. Even when companies decide to construct new facilities, projects often take years before producing a single megawatt of electricity. Meanwhile, AI demand is accelerating right now. that supply and demand imbalance is creating an attractive environment for companies that already own valuable power generation assets. This appears to be exactly what Steven Mandel sees. Rather than chasing companies building speculative future technologies, he owns a business supplying one of the most essential ingredients behind the AI economy. Without reliable electricity, artificial intelligence simply stops working. Every large language model, every AI powered search engine, every cloud platform, and every enterprise AI application depends on enormous amounts of dependable energy. Vistra operates a diversified generation portfolio with significant exposure to nuclear and natural gas facilities. These assets provide dispatchable electricity, meaning they can produce power when customers actually need it instead of relying entirely on weather conditions. That reliability has become increasingly valuable as data centers expand across the country. operators cannot afford power interruptions. The economics become even more attractive when long-term agreements lock in demand years into the future. Vistra is positioned to benefit from exactly that trend. Its existing generation fleet allows it to participate immediately as demand grows instead of waiting years for new infrastructure to come online. The financial results suggest that strategy is already working. During the first quarter of fiscal 2026, Vistra generated approximately 5.64 $64 billion in revenue, comfortably exceeding analyst expectations by more than 7%. Revenue beats are encouraging. What matters even more is profitability. Within the company's east segment, adjusted Avatar surged to approximately $81 million compared with $514 million during the same period a year earlier. That dramatic improvement reflects stronger capacity pricing together with contributions from the Lotus acquisition. Higher profitability tells investors that the company is capturing increasing value from its existing assets rather than simply selling more electricity at lower margins. Perhaps even more interesting is what has not yet shown up in current guidance. Vistra expects adjusted Ebbitar for 2026 between approximately $6.8 billion and $7.6 billion. Those are already impressive numbers. However, management has identified additional growth drivers that are expected to contribute beyond this guidance. One of the biggest opportunities is the planned acquisition of approximately 5,500 megawatts of natural gas generation through the Coentric transaction, which management expects to close during the second half of 2026. If completed successfully, that acquisition expands Vistra's ability to serve growing electricity demand while strengthening its position across attractive markets. Additional generation capacity means additional opportunities to capture future earnings as AI related electricity consumption continues rising. Another important development involves long-term power purchase agreements covering more than 2,600 megawatts across the company's nuclear facilities. Longduration contracts like these provide greater revenue visibility while supporting stable cash generation for years into the future. That predictability matters. Markets often reward businesses capable of producing dependable cash flows regardless of short-term economic uncertainty. One reason I find Vistra particularly compelling is that investors appear far less enthusiastic than the underlying fundamentals would suggest. Despite improving operating performance and favorable long-term industry dynamics, the stock has declined roughly 29% over the past year and remains down around 10% year to date. Normally, when a company delivers improving earnings while its share price falls, investors should ask why. Sometimes the market knows something management does not. Other times, the market simply becomes too focused on short-term uncertainty while overlooking long-term value creation. Steven Mandel appears to believe the second explanation deserves consideration. Investor sentiment remains broadly constructive despite the recent share price weakness. That combination creates an interesting setup, improving fundamentals, expanding earnings opportunities, growing AIdriven electricity demand, yet a stock price that has not reflected all of those positives. If the Cogentric acquisition closes as expected and management continues executing successfully, there is room for future earnings expectations to move even higher, that could eventually change investor perception. Another factor supporting the long-term investment case is the simple reality that electricity demand is entering an entirely different phase. For decades, energy demand in many developed markets remained relatively stable. Artificial intelligence changes that equation. Training increasingly sophisticated AI models requires enormous computing resources. Those computing resources consume vast amounts of electricity. As companies continue investing billions into AI infrastructure, demand for dependable power generation should remain structurally higher than many investors previously expected. Vistra already owns many of the assets capable of meeting that demand. That creates a significant competitive advantage compared with companies still attempting to develop new projects. Existing infrastructure becomes more valuable when supply remains constrained. This is one reason experienced institutional investors often pay close attention to infrastructure businesses during periods of technological transformation. While everyone focuses on the exciting software, the businesses supplying essential infrastructure often experience meaningful earnings growth themselves. There are certainly risks. Electricity markets remain heavily regulated. Commodity prices can influence profitability. Interest rates affect capitalintensive businesses. Execution on large acquisitions always carries uncertainty. Those realities should never be ignored. At the same time, Vistra appears well positioned to benefit from one of the strongest long-term investment themes anywhere in today's market. Artificial intelligence needs power. Reliable power requires existing infrastructure. Vistra owns that infrastructure. That is a straightforward investment thesis supported by improving operating performance and meaningful long-term demand drivers. Steven Mandel has consistently demonstrated a willingness to invest where structural trends create durable advantages rather than temporary excitement. Vistra fits that approach remarkably well. Instead of betting on which AI application ultimately wins, this investment focuses on supplying the electricity every one of those applications requires. Sometimes owning the infrastructure supporting an industry can prove just as rewarding as owning the industry itself. This video is brought to you by Value Stocks Investing Masterourse. If you're looking to grow your wealth by investing in solid undervalued stocks, but not sure where to start, I created the value stocks investing master course to teach you how to identify great companies, make smart investment decisions, and build a portfolio that lasts. Click the link in the description and pinned comments to get the course today, and take control of your financial future. Our final company may have one of the strongest competitive positions of any publicly traded business in the world. ASML, ticker symbol ASML, is not simply another semiconductor company. It occupies an almost irreplaceable position within the global chip manufacturing ecosystem. Every generation of more powerful processors depends on increasingly sophisticated manufacturing equipment. As chips become smaller, faster, and more energyefficient, producing them becomes dramatically more difficult. That is where ASML stands alone. The company designs and manufactures extreme ultraviolet lithography systems commonly known as EUV machines. These are among the most advanced manufacturing tools ever created. They allow chip manufacturers to print incredibly tiny transistor patterns onto silicon wafers with extraordinary precision. The important point for investors is this. There is no meaningful substitute. When semiconductor manufacturers want to produce the world's most advanced chips, they rely on ASML's technology. That gives the company an economic moat that very few businesses can match. Customers are not choosing between several similar products. They need ASML's equipment if they want to remain on the leading edge of semiconductor manufacturing. That kind of competitive advantage is exactly what long-term investors search for. It creates pricing power. It creates recurring demand. And perhaps most importantly, it creates extremely high barriers to entry. Building a competing EUV platform would require decades of research, enormous capital investment and technological breakthroughs that few companies on earth could realistically achieve. That is why Steven Mandel continues to own the business. He is investing in the company that enables the next generation of computing itself. Every major advancement in artificial intelligence ultimately increases demand for more powerful chips. More powerful chips require more advanced manufacturing and advanced manufacturing depends on ASML. That relationship places the company directly at the center of one of the biggest technology investment cycles of our lifetime. The financial results reinforce that story. During the second quarter of fiscal 2026, ASML generated approximately 10.65 billion in revenue, representing more than 21% year-over-year growth while exceeding the high end of management's own guidance. Strong revenue growth is impressive. The profitability is even more impressive. Earnings per share reached approximately $8.67 while operating margin expanded to 37.1% compared with 34.6% one year earlier. Higher margins tell investors that ASML is not simply selling more systems. It is becoming more profitable while doing so. That combination often produces exceptional long-term shareholder returns. Management also increased its outlook. The company now expects fiscal 2026 revenue between approximately $49.11 billion and $51.4 billion. Whenever leadership raises guidance while demand continues strengthening, investors should pay close attention. But perhaps the most exciting part of the investment story extends beyond this year. Management outlined plans to increase low NEUV production capacity by roughly 30% for 2027 while also evaluating another potential 30% expansion for 2028. Those expansion plans suggest confidence that customer demand will remain elevated for years rather than quarters. Chief Executive Officer Kristoff Fuket highlighted that AI related investment continues driving demand for advanced logic and memory chips as customers accelerate their capacity expansion plans. That statement matters because it reinforces an important point. Artificial intelligence is no longer a short-term trend. Companies are making multi-year capital investment decisions based on expectations that AI demand will continue growing well into the future. ASML sits directly in the middle of those spending plans. Investors have certainly noticed. The stock has climbed approximately 138% during the past year while gaining more than 42% year to date. Those are extraordinary returns. Naturally, some investors wonder whether they have already missed the opportunity. That is a reasonable question. After such a powerful rally, expectations become much higher. Future gains increasingly depend on management continuing to execute while customer orders convert into future revenue. Interestingly, investor sentiment remains relatively balanced despite the stock's impressive performance. While overall sentiment sits near neutral, the trend has improved significantly over the past month. That suggests confidence has been building as new information continues supporting the long-term investment thesis. Personally, I think one of ASML's greatest strengths is that it benefits regardless of which artificial intelligence application ultimately becomes dominant. The company does not need to predict the winning chatbot. It does not need to identify the winning enterprise software platform. It simply supplies the equipment required to manufacture the advanced processors powering all of them. That makes ASML something of a toll booth business. As more investment flows into advanced semiconductor manufacturing, the company stands to benefit from rising equipment demand across the industry. Of course, investors should recognize the risks. Semiconductor capital spending has historically been cyclical. Large customers occasionally delay equipment purchases. Global trade restrictions and geopolitical tensions can also influence future demand patterns. Those factors deserve careful consideration. However, the long-term direction appears clear. Artificial intelligence requires increasingly advanced computing. Increasingly advanced computing requires increasingly sophisticated chip manufacturing, and sophisticated chip manufacturing requires ASML's technology. That is an exceptionally powerful chain of demand. Looking across all three companies Steven Mandal owns, a fascinating pattern begins to emerge. Carpenter Technology provides the advanced materials that support critical industrial and aerospace applications. Vistra supplies the dependable electricity powering the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure. ASML provides the manufacturing technology that enables the world's most advanced semiconductor production. These businesses operate in completely different industries, yet they are connected by one common theme. They all provide essential infrastructure that other industries depend upon. Instead of chasing temporary excitement, Steven Mandel appears focused on businesses occupying critical positions within long-term structural growth trends. That approach has served him well throughout his investing career. For individual investors, there is an important lesson here. Sometimes the biggest winners are not the companies receiving the most headlines. Often they are the businesses quietly supplying the essential products and services that entire industries cannot function without. Those companies frequently enjoy stronger competitive advantages, more predictable demand, and longer periods of sustainable growth. That does not mean every stock will outperform every year. Markets never work that way. But building a portfolio around businesses with durable moes, strong execution, and long-term relevance has historically been a strategy worth serious consideration. If you want exclusive stock tips, in-depth analysis, real-time trade alerts, and free investing guides, join the Stocks Galore Patreon today and take your investing game to the next level. Our members get full in-depth analysis on most of the stocks mentioned here. Head over to patreon.com/stocksgalore and become part of our growing community of smart investors. Link is in the description. Now, I would love to hear from you. Which business do you believe has the strongest long-term competitive advantage? Carpenter Technology with its specialized aerospace materials, Vistra with its AI powered energy infrastructure, or ASML with its unmatched semiconductor manufacturing technology. Let us know your answer and your reasoning in the comments because your perspective could help other investors think differently about these opportunities. Do not forget to like the video, share your thoughts in the comments, and subscribe so you do not miss the next important investing update. Thanks for watching and I will see you in the next