Five Stocks That Helped Will Danoff Beat the Market
Tech giants Meta and Nvidia top the list of stocks that have contributed the most to Contrafund’s returns.
Key Takeaways
- Close to half of Fidelity Contrafund’s returns during Will Danoff’s tenure have come from five stocks.
- Meta contributed the most to the fund’s long-term gains, followed by Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft.
- The concentration highlights Danoff’s approach of betting big on certain stocks and letting his winners ride.
Fidelity Contrafund FCNTX manager Will Danoff has been known for making big winning bets within the fund’s portfolio. As Danoff heads into retirement after 35 years at Contrafund, a look back at the fund’s performance shows that five stocks accounted for 46% of its cumulative return over that time. Those stocks are:
In a portfolio with hundreds of names, that concentration of returns might seem surprising. However, it aligns with Danoff’s approach to picking stocks. “Danoff favored best-of-breed firms with strong leadership, durable earnings growth, and clear competitive edges,” wrote Morningstar principal Robby Greengold in his recent article on Danoff’s track record.
Danoff took inspiration from former Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Warren Buffett, who advised him “When you have a good idea, bet big.” In addition, Danoff “rejected the idea that a stock was ‘done’ just because it had doubled or tripled,” according to Greengold.
The Stocks That Led Contrafund’s Returns
To see which stocks were the biggest contributors to Contrafund’s returns over the 35-year period, the fund’s performance was put through Morningstar Direct’s equity attribution tool. This data doesn’t capture Danoff’s biggest-percentage winners in terms of price appreciation, but rather the names that drove the greatest percentage of the fund’s cumulative returns during his tenure. (For more on our methodology, see the bottom of this article.)
Between Dec. 31, 1990, and Dec. 31, 2025, the five stocks contributed 4,526 percentage points of the fund’s 9,938% cumulative return. Notably, Danoff picked up Alphabet (then called Google) at its IPO and Meta before it was even public.
We also looked at performance attribution for the past five years. The list was largely the same, with the exception of Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A/BRK.B taking Amazon’s place on the list.
Here’s a closer look at Danoff’s history with the stocks most responsible for driving Contrafund’s returns.
Meta Platforms
Danoff was an early investor in Meta, buying in the first quarter of 2012, before its IPO later that year. The stock has gained 1,639% between going public and the end of 2025, and it accounts for 13.8% of the fund’s returns over the past 35 years.
Meta is the fund’s largest holding, with a 12.5% weighting. That’s more than twice the 4.9% weighting in its category’s benchmark, the Morningstar US Large-Mid Cap Broad Growth Index. Management trimmed their position in the stock from 40.9 million shares at the end of June, when its weighting was 18%, to 33.2 million at the end of December.
“We view it as a leading, founder-led tech firm that has embraced AI to improve two critical parts of its business: choosing content and ads to show users, and helping advertisers create better ads,” wrote management in their fourth-quarter 2025 review.
Nvidia
Nvidia has a 10.9% weighting in the fund, making it the second-largest holding in the portfolio. This puts the fund 4 points underweight the stock compared with the category benchmark.
Nvidia accounted for 11.4% of the fund’s gains over the past 35 years. The stock has risen more than 16,000% through the end of 2025 from the end of second quarter of 2016, when Danoff first bought the stock. Senior management at Nvidia, Meta, and Amazon, have “successfully and rapidly innovated with AI, and we believe each will be able to deliver faster EPS growth than the overall market,” Danoff wrote in a Q&A for the second quarter of 2025.
Alphabet
Alphabet is the fund’s third-largest holding, with a 6.5% weighting—less than its 8.0% weighting in the category benchmark. The stock accounts for 8.1% of the fund’s gains since the end of 1990. Danoff bought Alphabet (then Google) at its August 2004 IPO and has spent ample time digging into it over the years. Alphabet has gained over 12,000% since its IPO through the end of 2025.
“We decided that we needed to visit [Alphabet’s headquarters] more regularly and asked for visits with somebody other than just the CFO, and if you go to a company for five or six years, two times a year, and visit with three different executives—I probably have met the top 50 executives at Google,” Danoff said in an interview with Morningstar in 2020. “And that’s one way to improve your understanding of important trends that important companies like Google are seeing and then assess the quality of the management below just the CFO or the CEO.”
Amazon
Amazon racked up 6.3% of the fund’s gains over Danoff’s tenure. The stock is the fund’s fifth-largest holding, with a 5.8% weighting, just above the 5.2% weighting in the category benchmark.
Compared with his early investments in Meta and Alphabet, Danoff invested in Amazon late. He first bought the stock in the second quarter of 2007, eight years after its IPO. Amazon stock has gained more than 6,000% since then through the end of 2025.
Microsoft
Microsoft rounds out the top five largest contributors to the Fidelity Contrafund’s returns, having brought in 6% of its gains over the past 35 years. The sixth-largest holding in the fund’s portfolio, the stock has a weighting of 4.1%, compared with its 5.6% weighting in the category benchmark.
Danoff first added the stock to his portfolio in the final quarter of 2013. Microsoft has gained more than 1,550% since the end of that quarter through the end of 2025.
In the fund’s June 2025 Q&A, Danoff said he had trimmed exposure to Microsoft in the first half of 2025 on fears of slowing growth. “I probably overreacted to concern about slowing growth in Microsoft’s cloud business and the firm’s rumored rift with AI startup OpenAI,” he wrote. “Significant acceleration in spending on AI and cloud computing by enterprises worldwide has overwhelmed any concerns I had.”
A Recent Contributor: Berkshire Hathaway
Most of the same stocks that powered the fund’s returns over the past 35 years remained the largest contributors to its gains over the past five. Nvidia rose to first place, pushing Meta to second, but Amazon was replaced by Berkshire Hathway in fourth when it came to driving returns.
Since the fund invested in Berkshire in the last quarter of 2002, the stock has gained more than 900% through the end of 2025. Over the past five years, it contributed 7.3% of the fund’s overall return. No slouch over the long term, Berkshire contributed 5.7% of the fund’s gains over the past 35 years.
Berkshire currently makes up 6.2% of the fund’s portfolio. Because the stock is classified as a large value name, it isn’t included in the US Large-Mid Cap Broad Growth Index.
In their June 2025 Q&A, the fund’s managers mentioned the uncertainty hanging over the company: “In May, legendary CEO and value investor Warren Buffett announced he would step down as CEO at the end of the year. We have a huge amount of respect for Buffett’s lieutenants, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain, but Berkshire will not be the same without Buffett at the helm, so we will be closely watching as this transition unfolds.”
Methodology
Fidelity Contrafund listed weightings are as of the fund’s most recent disclosure from Dec. 30, 2025. All instances of Alphabet stock combine both major share classes. Return contribution numbers are for the period between Dec. 31, 1990 and Dec. 31, 2025. Benchmark weightings are for the Morningstar US Large-Mid Cap Broad Growth Index as of Dec. 31, 2025.
The author or authors do not own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstar’s editorial policies.
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