Billionaire Mark Cuban says he scored a 1,000% return on Netflix and a 500% return on Amazon using a strategy of sticking with companies he believes in

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• Mark Cuban told “The David Rubenstein Show” that his buy-and-hold strategy had led him to big returns on Netflix and Amazon.
• The “Shark Tank” investor who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks said he stuck with companies he believed in.
• Cuban also said he used to be an active trader but no longer was. “There’s a lot more money chasing fewer stocks, so it’s harder to trade and be successful,” he said.

The billionaire investor Mark Cuban spoke with “The David Rubenstein Show” on Tuesday about his buy-and-hold strategy that he said had given him skyrocketing returns over the long term.

The Dallas Mavericks owner said he’d owned Netflix stock since it cost $50 a share. The streaming service closed Wednesday near $550, giving Cuban a roughly 1,000% return on his investment. He also said he was buying Amazon when it was between $500 and $700 and more recently had owned more shares at just under $2,000. On Wednesday, Amazon closed at $3,441.85 — meaning an investment of $500 would have gained more than 500%. Cuban confirmed these returns with Business Insider.

Cuban said his strategy in recent years had been to stick with companies he believed in. 

“I pretty much make my own decisions,” the “Shark Tank” investor told Rubenstein. 

“I used to trade a lot,” he added. “I used to be very, very active as a trader. And back in the ’90s and early 2000s, there was a lot less money chasing more stocks, and now there’s a lot more money chasing fewer stocks, so it’s harder to trade and be successful.”

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Beyond Netflix and Amazon, Cuban said he had “some scattered things” that he’d “owned over the years that I’ve held on to.”

But the investor said that he no longer traded the way he used to and that the Federal Reserve’s inflation of financial assets had given him a tailwind.

Cuban added that while the coronavirus pandemic had forced many small businesses to close and harmed some large companies, this uncertainty created opportunities for new innovation, especially in the digital realm.

“I think there’s a lot of unique opportunities that are available to people who are creative, who have a vision for the future,” he said. “I think 10, 15, 20 years, we’ll look back and there will be 10, 20, 30 world-class companies that were created by people who we probably are thinking are crazy right now.”