10 Stocks Kenneth Griffin Is Loading Up On

Kenneth C. Griffin began trading in his dorm room at Harvard University and launched his first hedge fund in 1987 with $265,000, just days after his 19th birthday. He profited greatly from short positions during Black Monday. By the time he graduated, he was already established as a precocious financial talent.

He moved to Chicago to work with Frank Meyer at Glenwood Capital Investments and made 70% returns on $1 million in trading capital before founding Citadel in 1990 with $4.6 million in initial assets. His firm delivered exceptional performance with 43% returns in 1991 and 40% in 1992, and by age 34 in 2003, he became the youngest person on the Forbes 400 with an estimated net worth of $650 million.

He did take a hit in 2008, as he was forced to halt investor withdrawals for a year to prevent a collapse, as his biggest funds lost 55%. The next year, however, the fund rebounded by 62%. It took until 2012 to fully recoup losses, but Griffin managed to preserve his reputation.

Today, Citadel Advisors has $446.96 billion in assets under management. Here are the stocks Citadel has been directly loading up on in Q3 2025.

#10 Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC)

Norfolk Southern Corp. is a major U.S. freight railroad that moves bulk commodities, industrial products, and intermodal shipments across the eastern half of the country. Railroads like Norfolk Southern benefit from long-lived infrastructure, regulated competition, and the essential role they play in the industrial supply chain.

Citadel’s position in Norfolk Southern is tiny compared with its tech and healthcare stakes, amounting to only 0.48% of the overall equity portfolio. But they increased their holdings by a whopping 18025.08%. The stake gives him some exposure to U.S. industrial activity and infrastructure investment, which can pay off when the economy is strong and freight volumes are healthy.

Citadel held 1.97 million shares in the third quarter, representing a market value of $592.79 million.

#9 Broadcom Inc. (AVGO)

Broadcom is a serious AI-infrastructure play in the portfolio. This looks like a tactical holding for Griffin, since he has sold it and bought back many times in the past.

Broadcom is a semiconductor and infrastructure-software company. It sells networking chips, custom silicon, and enterprise software used in data centers and communications networks. Its networking and custom-chip businesses are tightly linked to AI data-center build-outs, and AI-related revenue has become an important growth driver.

Citadel bought 1.71 million shares in Q3 and now holds a total of 1.91 million (representing 0.51% of the portfolio).

#8 Tesla Inc. (TSLA)

Citadel has traded Tesla for years, with dozens of buy and sell moves since first entering the name in 2013. At various points, Tesla has been one of Griffin’s largest positions. Today the stock represents 0.53% of the portfolio (1.5 million shares with a market value of $666.82 million).

TSLA still gives him optionality on EV growth and robotics, but the position sizing shows that he currently prefers to keep it as one active bet among many, rather than a dominant core holding.

#7 Boston Scientific Corp. (BSX)

Boston Scientific Corp. develops medical devices used in cardiology, electrophysiology, endoscopy, urology, and other minimally invasive procedures. The company is one of Griffin’s largest healthcare holdings and ranks high in his overall stock portfolio by value. He holds 8.91 million shares (market value: $869.52 million), representing 0.7% of the portfolio.

Citadel has steadily increased its stake over the years, buying millions of additional shares and riding sizable gains as the stock moved higher. BSX fits Griffin’s preference for businesses with strong positions in markets that benefit from aging populations and growing demand for minimally invasive therapies.

#6 Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY)

Eli Lilly & Co. is a major drugmaker whose recent success centers on breakthrough diabetes and obesity treatments alongside oncology and immunology drugs. Its GLP-1-based drugs and pipeline candidates have opened up a massive weight-loss and metabolic-health opportunity that could drive growth for many years.

Citadel has owned Eli Lilly for more than a decade and has turned it into one of its biggest single-stock positions. He has added to the position repeatedly, and this gives him exposure to what many see as a once-in-a-generation obesity-drug franchise plus a deep pipeline in other therapeutic areas. It also adds a defensive healthcare element to the portfolio, since demand for its treatments depends more on medical need than on the economic cycle.

Griffin increased his holdings by 35.11% in Q3. He holds 1.15 million shares with a market value of $879.60 million.

#5 Visa Inc. (V)

Visa has been a long-standing position for Citadel, and Griffin has shown a willingness to scale it up sharply. As cash steadily gives way to cards and electronic payments worldwide, Visa’s volumes and revenues tend to rise with global consumption. V offers steady earnings growth and is unlikely to disappoint him.

Citadel increased its holdings by 14,838.21% in the third quarter. The fund now owns 3.06 million shares, representing a market value of $1.04 billion. V made up 0.84% of the Citadel portfolio in Q3.

#4 Apple Inc. (AAPL)

Citadel has drastically grown its Apple stake. It sits in Griffin’s top tier of holdings, both directly and through ETFs that are themselves heavily weighted to the stock. With 4.92 million shares (market value: $1.25 billion), Apple stock represents 1% of the Citadel holdings. They increased their holdings by 108.21% in Q3.

Apple is built around the iPhone but also earns substantial revenue from Macs, iPads, wearables, and a fast-growing services ecosystem. This is a sturdy software + hardware play, though management hasn’t been nearly as interested in AI compared to other big-caps. The company has huge cash flows, buys back stock aggressively, and sits on a massive installed base that it can monetize through services and future AI features. This looks like a relatively steady compounder that still offers upside from new products and AI, so Griffin finds it worthwhile to hold.

#3 Meta Platforms Inc. (META)

Citadel has steadily built Meta into a meaningful position, placing it among Griffin’s larger tech bets (1.15% of the portfolio) alongside Microsoft and Nvidia. He increased his stake aggressively during the company’s cost-cutting and “year of efficiency” phase, when earnings growth re-accelerated and the stock re-rated higher.

Meta Platforms runs Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, with the bulk of its revenue coming from targeted digital advertising. The company leaned heavily on AI in 2025. Owning META gives Griffin better exposure to digital advertising, social-media engagement, and AI-driven monetization improvements, plus upside from longer-term projects like mixed reality and AI agents.

Citadel increased its position by 12,693.4%. It holds 1.96 million shares, with a market value of $1.44 billion.

#2 Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)

Nvidia designs GPUs and accelerators that power most modern AI and high-performance computing workloads. Its data-center business has exploded as cloud providers and large enterprises rush to build AI infrastructure.

Nvidia has been one of Citadel’s biggest equity stakes, and Griffin has repeatedly built it up with very large share additions during the AI boom. He has also cut the position sharply at times. The fund manager did suggest he is somewhat skeptical about AI euphoria in general, but he still sees Nvidia as a company “on top of their game,” which fits with him owning it while managing the exposure carefully. Put simply, he seems to view NVDA as a powerful but high-octane way to express a view on AI, best handled with an active trading approach rather than a static allocation.

Citadel held 9.82 million shares with a market value of $1.83 billion. That represents 1.47% of the portfolio.

#1 Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)

Citadel has made Microsoft one of its largest single-stock positions. At times, Griffin has trimmed or rotated part of the stake when he saw better risk-reward in other chip or AI plays, so MSFT looks like a core holding that he sizes actively rather than a “buy and forget” position.

Given Microsoft’s dominance in productivity software and cloud plus its front-row seat in AI, he is essentially using MSFT as a high-quality way to ride long-term AI and enterprise-software growth. The company’s business spans Windows, Office, Azure, LinkedIn, and gaming. It has pushed AI deeply into its product lineup through Copilot and its partnership with OpenAI, which is now a major driver for Azure and enterprise demand.

Griffin increased his stake by 100.32% in the third quarter. His fund held 3.97 million shares. That’s a market value of $2.06 billion, with is 1.65% of the overall portfolio.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©DanGPhotos1 / BY 2.0.