Breaking down the stocks Stephen Mandel (Lone Pine) bought, sold, and held in Q1 2025, including their holdings at the end of the quarter. All data sourced from Lone Pine's 13F filed on May 15, 2025.
Who are Stephen Mandel and Lone Pine Capital?
Stephen Mandel is the founder and managing director of Lone Pine Capital LLC (commonly referred to as Lone Pine Capital). The fund is known for its concentrated portfolio, typically consisting of 20-25 stocks, with the top 10 holdings comprising approximately 57% of assets, and minimal cash holdings as it aims to remain close to fully invested over time. His investment strategy is a growth-oriented long/short equity approach inspired by Julian Robertson's Tiger Management, emphasizing long-term capital appreciation through an integrated, iterative research process that generates differentiated insights and high-conviction ideas across public and private markets. Mandel focuses on innovative companies undergoing catalysts for change that can compound value over multiple years, with strong qualitative factors like management caliber, growth potential, favorable unit economics, high margin profiles, durable competitive advantages, franchise value, and alignment with secular trends and inflection points.
Lonepinecapital.com
Q1 '25 13F filed with SEC
Holdings in Q1 2025
| Ticker | Company | Weight | Change | Value | Option Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| META | Meta | 9.1% | Trimmed (-14%) | $1.01B | |
| INTU | Intuit | 7.8% | Added (+21%) | $861.92M | |
| AMZN | Amazon | 7.5% | Added (+15%) | $828.15M | |
| MSFT | Microsoft | 6.6% | Added (+20%) | $735.89M | |
| SBUX | Starbucks | 5.9% | Added (+2%) | $648.17M | |
| TSM | Taiwan Semiconductor | 5.8% | Added (+3%) | $641.65M | |
| LPLA | LPL Financial | 5.2% | Trimmed (-8%) | $577.08M | |
| COF | Capital One | 5.1% | Trimmed (-2%) | $569.48M | |
| KKR | KKR | 5.0% | Added (+18%) | $550.74M | |
| VST | Vistra | 4.9% | Trimmed (-14%) | $540.79M | |
| FLUT | Flutter Entertainment | 4.4% | Added (+16%) | $491.82M | |
| CVNA | Carvana | 4.4% | NEW | $483.85M | |
| PM | Philip Morris | 4.3% | Trimmed (-53%) | $477.55M | |
| CRM | Salesforce | 4.2% | Added (+11%) | $464.71M | |
| LLY | Eli Lilly | 4.1% | Trimmed (-30%) | $455.76M | |
| TOL | Toll Brothers | 3.6% | NEW | $401.3M | |
| ASML | ASML | 3.5% | Added (+32%) | $385.93M | |
| CDNS | Cadence | 2.8% | NEW | $309.87M | |
| ARES | Ares Management | 2.1% | Trimmed (-4%) | $235.23M | |
| TLN | Talen Energy | 2.0% | $217.52M | ||
| WING | Wingstop | 0.9% | NEW | $101.3M | |
| APP | AppLovin | 0.8% | Trimmed (-71%) | $83.62M | Call |
| PTC | PTC | 0.0% | Exited | $-427.72M | |
| SPOT | Spotify | 0.0% | Exited | $-408.71M | |
| WDAY | Workday | 0.0% | Exited | $-398.26M | |
| CEG | Constellation Energy | 0.0% | Exited | $-388.7M | |
| HWM | Howmet Aerospace | 0.0% | Exited | $-334.86M | |
| SQ | Block | 0.0% | Exited | $-320.05M | |
| LEN | Lennar | 0.0% | Exited | $-234.27M | |
| BTDR | BitDeer Technologies | 0.0% | Exited | $-21.38M | |
| HUT | Hut 8 | 0.0% | Exited | $-14.2M | |
| CIFR | Cipher Mining | 0.0% | Exited | $-10.88M | |
| WULF | TeraWulf | 0.0% | Exited | $-8.38M | |
| IREN | IREN | 0.0% | Exited | $-6.99M |
Current Investment Strategy
Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital maintained its concentrated, growth-oriented approach in Q1 2025, trimming core tech holdings like Meta Platforms and Amazon while pivoting toward cyclical opportunities with new positions in Carvana, Toll Brothers, Cadence Design, and Wingstop, alongside a top holding in Talen Energy to capitalize on AI-driven data center power demand. The Tiger Cub exited multiple positions including Spotify, Workday, and Constellation Energy, demonstrating a 33% turnover rate as the firm's $11.6 billion portfolio reflected a strategic reallocation from high-valuation technology names toward underpenetrated markets in automotive retail, homebuilding, and nuclear power infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence growth.
New Investments
Carvana CVNA
Stephen Mandel bought $483.85M of Carvana in Q1 2025. Q3 2025 delivered exceptional results with 55% revenue growth to $5.65 billion and 44% growth in retail units sold to a record 155,941 units, driven by expanded inventory, automation investments, and operational efficiencies. Profitability strengthened significantly with $637 million in adjusted EBITDA (11.3% margin), $1.03 EPS (61% YoY growth), and substantial balance sheet improvements including $2.1 billion in cash and debt reduction to 1.5x net debt-to-EBITDA. Management's strong Q4 guidance for adjusted EBITDA at or above the high end of the $2.0–$2.2 billion full-year range signals confidence in sustained profitable growth, though recent stock weakness suggests market skepticism about valuation or execution risks.
- 55% YoY revenue growth to $5.65 billion with 44% growth in retail units sold to 155,941, significantly outpacing the broader used-car market and establishing new company records.
- 61% YoY EPS growth to $1.03 with adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.3% and 87% conversion to GAAP operating income, demonstrating improved operational leverage.
- Net debt-to-trailing twelve-month adjusted EBITDA improved to 1.5x following $1.2 billion of debt retirement across 2024–2025, with $2.1 billion in cash representing the company's strongest financial position ever.
Toll Brothers TOL
Stephen Mandel bought $401.3M of Toll Brothers in Q1 2025. Toll Brothers delivered a strong Q3 2025 earnings beat with adjusted EPS of $3.73 (up 3.6% YoY) and revenue of $2,945.1 million (up 8% YoY), demonstrating the resilience of its luxury positioning and higher-income customer base amid broader market affordability challenges. However, the company is showing early signs of market cooling, with net-signed contracts declining year-over-year and backlog down 19% YoY, signaling potential headwinds for future quarters despite maintained pricing discipline and gross margin of 27.5%. Management's strategy of prioritizing price and margin over sales pace continues to differentiate the company, positioning it to outperform peers in a constrained supply environment where public builders are gaining market share.
- Adjusted EPS beat consensus estimate by 3.9% at $3.73, growing 3.6% YoY, with home deliveries up 5% YoY to 2,959 units.
- Backlog contracted 19% YoY to 5,492 homes, but pricing power remained strong with average backlog price increasing to $1,161,000.
- Strong long-term shareholder returns of 228% over 5 years, with 28% EPS CAGR from 2013-2024, significantly outpacing the homebuilding industry.
Cadence CDNS
Stephen Mandel bought $309.87M of Cadence in Q1 2025. Cadence delivered strong Q3 2025 results with non-GAAP EPS of $1.93, beating consensus by 7.8% and growing 17.6% year-over-year, though revenue of $1.34 billion slightly missed expectations at $1.35 billion. The company raised its full-year 2025 guidance, now expecting ~14% revenue growth driven by accelerating AI, high-performance computing, and automotive demand, supported by a record backlog of $7.0 billion that provides substantial revenue visibility into 2026. Strategic deepening of partnerships with TSMC, Samsung, and OpenAI, coupled with strong adoption of the Cadence.AI portfolio and unified design platform, position the company for continued market share gains in the AI-driven semiconductor design cycle.
- Non-GAAP EPS increased 17.6% year-over-year to $1.93, beating consensus estimate by 7.8%.
- Record backlog of $7.0 billion exceeded Zacks consensus of $6.107 billion by 14.7%, with $3.5 billion expected revenue recognition within 12 months.
- Full-year 2025 revenue guidance raised to $5.262-$5.292 billion, implying approximately 14% year-over-year growth.
Wingstop WING
Stephen Mandel bought $101.3M of Wingstop in Q1 2025. Wingstop demonstrated exceptional operational and financial momentum in Q3 2025, with adjusted EBITDA reaching a record $63.7 million (up 18.6% year-over-year) and system-wide sales growing 10.0% to $1.4 billion, driven primarily by aggressive unit expansion of 114 net new restaurants representing 19.3% net unit growth. The company achieved a significant earnings beat with EPS of $1.09 versus a $0.93 forecast, resulting in a 14.36% pre-market stock surge and reflecting strong investor confidence in the brand's expansion strategy. While domestic same-store sales declined 5.6%, this headwind was more than offset by strong margins, record-level adjusted EBITDA, and strategic digital initiatives that now represent 72.8% of system-wide sales.
- Adjusted EBITDA increased 18.6% year-over-year to a record $63.7 million in Q3 2025.
- Unit expansion accelerated with 114 net new restaurant openings, delivering 19.3% net new unit growth.
- EPS of $1.09 beat forecast by 17.2%, with net income rising 10.7% to $28.5 million.
Added, Trimmed, and Exited
Added
Stephen Mandel increased positions in Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), KKR, Intuit (INTU), Salesforce (CRM), ASML, Starbucks (SBUX), Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), and Flutter Entertainment (FLUT).
What it means: These additions reflect a concentrated bet on AI infrastructure and mega-cap technology at more attractive valuations following market volatility. The increases in Microsoft (+320,631 shares), Amazon (+563,706 shares), and semiconductor equipment leaders ASML (+140,661 shares) and Taiwan Semiconductor (+104,937 shares) signal conviction in the continued build-out of AI compute capacity. The addition to KKR (+715,628 shares) and Intuit (+247,040 shares) suggests confidence in quality compounders with durable business models, while the Starbucks increase (+132,831 shares) may reflect a turnaround thesis under new leadership. This represents a shift toward established, high-quality growth names with stronger balance sheets.
Trimmed
Lone Pine significantly reduced Philip Morris (PM) by 53.5%, AppLovin (APP) call options by 70.9%, Eli Lilly (LLY) by 29.5%, Vistra (VST) by 14.0%, and Meta by 13.7%, while making smaller trims to LPL Financial (LPLA), Ares Management (ARES), and Capital One (COF).
What it means: These trims appear to be tactical profit-taking from 2024's strongest performers and valuation-sensitive rebalancing. The dramatic reduction in Philip Morris and near-complete exit from AppLovin call options suggests booking gains after exceptional runs, while the Eli Lilly trim may reflect concerns about heightened competition in the GLP-1 obesity drug market or valuation compression. The Meta and Vistra reductions, despite strong underlying fundamentals, could indicate a rotation away from crowded trades where much of the growth story has been priced in. The financial services trims (LPL Financial, Ares Management, Capital One) are modest and likely portfolio rebalancing rather than conviction changes.
Exited
Mandel completely exited PTC ($427.7M), Spotify (SPOT) ($408.7M), Workday (WDAY) ($398.3M), Constellation Energy (CEG) ($388.7M), Howmet Aerospace (HWM) ($334.9M), Block (SQ) ($320.1M), Lennar (LEN) ($234.3M), and all Bitcoin mining positions including BitDeer Technologies (BTDR), Hut 8 (HUT), Cipher Mining (CIFR), TeraWulf (WULF), and IREN.
What it means: The complete exit from all Bitcoin mining stocks represents the most striking thematic pivot, signaling a decisive retreat from crypto infrastructure exposure amid Bitcoin's volatility and potential regulatory headwinds. The liquidation of multiple enterprise software positions (PTC, Workday, Spotify) suggests growing concerns about software spending deceleration, compressed multiples, or increased competition from AI-native alternatives. Exiting Constellation Energy and trimming Vistra indicates reduced conviction in the nuclear/power generation trade despite AI data center demand narratives. The Block and Lennar exits reflect a move away from consumer-facing fintech and housing exposure, possibly due to concerns about consumer health and mortgage rate sensitivity. This aggressive portfolio pruning suggests Lone Pine is consolidating into higher-conviction positions and pivoting away from 2024's more speculative themes.
Disclaimer: All posts are for informational purposes only. They are NOT a recommendation to buy or sell the securities discussed. Please do your own research and due diligence before investing your money.
