Bill Ackman built his name on big, often bold, bets. This quarter he did something a little quieter: he bought six different stocks at once.
His firm, Pershing Square, added six new positions in the second quarter. In a letter to investors, Ackman called the market a "highly attractive environment" for putting money into everything that is not the AI trade. His thinking is simple. Once the AI boom pushes a few tech giants to record highs, the rest of the market starts to look less expensive by comparison.
The new names are Visa, Mastercard, Intercontinental Exchange, Netflix, and Alcon. They sit alongside his existing stakes in Microsoft, Uber, Amazon, and Meta. Ackman told investors in May that Microsoft was a major AI winner, but these new positions go in a different direction.
They are not big tech. They are steady, cash-producing businesses that he believes the market has unfairly discounted.
Two of the new buys sit in the middle of nearly every credit card swipe. Visa is +3% this year, while Mastercard sits at -2% for 2026 so far. Those returns are nothing flashy, and that's kind of the point.
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Ackman calls them "toll-takers." They charge a small fee on each transaction without taking on the risk of a lender. In the letter, he described both as "capital light toll-takers that earn a nominal fee on each transaction without taking any material risk and are natural beneficiaries of higher inflation." When prices rise, the fee rises too.
The third addition reveals the same mindset. Intercontinental Exchange, the company behind the New York Stock Exchange and other clearing businesses, is down 6% this year. Ackman sees a simple business that sells data and processes trades, and he thinks the recent sell-off looks unwarranted. The stock sold off even while the broader market moved higher, a pattern that has historically worked well for previous Pershing Square investments.
Netflix is the most familiar name on the list, but it has been sliding. The streamer is down -18% for the year. Ackman had a brief stake in Netflix back in 2022, and now, he says, "Netflix has effectively won the streaming wars."
The logic is about scale. Because Netflix's subscriber base dwarfs its rivals, it can invest more in programming and distribute those expenses over the largest audience in the industry. That makes it more difficult for competitors to catch up, both in value and in profit.
The final new position is Alcon, the eye care company. Its stock has slipped to -8% this year. Alcon was separated from Novartis in 2019, and its earnings have compounded 8% per year since. Ackman expects an aging population and rising incomes to keep selling more vital goods.
There is no need to copy Ackman's list. That's not the point.
The pattern says more: he is buying boring, slow-moving, cash-generating names that happen to look unloved right now. When the AI trade captures the headlines, companies like Visa, ICE, and Alcon get less attention. That doesn't mean they have a problem; it means they are priced for something they've already been.
The conversation you should be having is not "what did Ackman buy?" but "do I own a company that earns a steady cash while no one is watching?" By the time 2026 arrives, the market will likely write a verdict on all six. For your holdings, the best was a reliable engine, not the loudest story. The quiet cash of these businesses is the part that will show up in returns.
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