Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has advised individual investors to put their capital into broad-market equity index funds for long-term growth.
The founder and CEO of Pershing Square shared his views during a recent interview, warning against bond investments due to lower historical returns and rising capital costs driven by massive corporate spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
"Pick an index fund," Ackman said, emphasizing that broad equity index funds remain the most accessible tool for retail investors seeking long-term liquidity and high growth potential.
Ackman's Concentrated Portfolio
While recommending index funds for most investors, Ackman continues to manage a concentrated portfolio through Pershing Square.
His top bets include Restaurant Brands International, Brookfield Corporation, Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber Technologies.
Investors can access these positions directly through the Pershing Square USA fund, but low-cost exchange-traded funds such as the Vanguard Mega Cap ETF and Vanguard Growth ETF hold nearly identical major assets with lower management expenses.
Within his core equities portfolio, Amazon and Microsoft represent major bets on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Amazon Web Services generated $37.59 billion in first-quarter revenue, while Microsoft's AI segment surpassed a $37 billion annual run rate.
"The two largest AI labs in the world in OpenAI and Anthropic have made multi-year, multi-gigawatt commitments to Trainium," said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
"Today, 98% of the top 1000 EC2 customers use Graviton in a very expansive way."
Microsoft's performance has similarly been driven by expanding commercial commitments across its cloud platform and corporate client base despite recent market price pullbacks.
"Our AI business surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion, up 123% year-over-year," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Ackman's recent portfolio expansions also highlight autonomous vehicles and platform scale through Uber Technologies, which posted $53.72 billion in gross bookings during the first quarter of 2026.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi described the company's "clear path to becoming the largest facilitator of AV trips in the world."
Ackman emphasized that while picking individual stocks requires constructing a balanced portfolio, broad equity index funds remain the most effective path for individual capital growth over a 10-year holding period.
