David Tepper: The Bounce Back King (Hedge Fund Legend)

**Brett Schafer** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:21)
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**Brett Schafer** (0:48)
Welcome into the Chit Chat Stocks podcast, a podcast to help you find your next great investment. My name is Brett Schafer and I'm joined as always by my co-host Ryan Henderson. This week on our Wednesday episode, we are continuing our Super Investor series, well-known for his sharing of drinks with American football opponents. Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper actually earned his wealth as a hedge fund savant in 1990s and 2000s under, and this is I think how we say the name, it's a very difficult one to spell, Appaloosa management. He's not as known as the Buffets or the Peter Lynch's, the Ben Grahams of the world because of his rare public appearances. I don't think he's written any books.
I didn't notice anyone looking anything up online. There have been a few profiles in books, but not much besides that. But his returns are just as stellar as some of these legends. In fact, even better over a 20-year period, you can officially say he is in the pantheon of what you'd call market movers, legends of the industry, people that when they say something on CNBC and move the entire sector or country's trades. But before we get started covering David Tepper, let's make sure to, if you're listening to the show, follow the Chit Chat Stocks podcast wherever you're listening right now. Give us a five-star review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and for further discussion on investing and the stock market, join our riveting chat community that is completely free by signing up for our newsletter in the show notes. We're winding down our list of super investors covered in the last few years. I think we're going to finish out with the big dogs like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett to close out 2026, maybe even Ben Graham. I thought of him when we were writing this down. We haven't covered him, I don't think, sometimes. Given the level of episodes we do on a weekly basis, it's hard to remember every single one. There's one you want us to cover before the end of 2026 Let us know.
The introduction is going long here. So Ryan, I'm going to kick things over to you. Tell the listeners who exactly David Tepper is, and then we'll go into his investing style, his track record, and his portfolio today.

**Ryan Henderson** (2:56)
David Tepper was born in 1957 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a father who was an accountant and a mother, who was an elementary school teacher.
From what I read, what I gathered, it seemed like he was a part of a pretty ordinary American family. He was the middle of three children. The family was pretty much middle class. He attended a public high school called Peabody High School. He ended up becoming the valedictorian there. And he had a major interest in sports, as pretty much any Carolina sports fan now knows, because he is the owner of the NFL Carolina Panthers and the MLS team there in Charlotte as well. But in all the articles I read about his early life, the only thing that really stood out as sort of like indicative of what he might one day become was that his brother said he was very analytical.
I mean, he always seemed to be a pretty good student. And apparently, his grandfather would get him baseball cards, and he had a unique ability to memorize the player statistics. I don't know where this source was, but someone, it might have been Tepper himself, claimed or maybe jokingly said he had a photographic memory. I kind of shrugged my shoulders at that. But basically, he was analytical, smart, and had a good memory from a young age. After high school, he attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he graduated in 1978 with a bachelor's in economics. And then he earned what now equates to an MBA at Carnegie Mellon.

**Brett Schafer** (4:36)
His college is also- Named after him now.

**Ryan Henderson** (4:38)
Yes.
Yeah, correct. I think it's the Tepper School of Business, if I'm not mistaken.

**Brett Schafer** (4:44)
Something like that.

**Ryan Henderson** (4:47)
He also started trading stocks and options while he was in school. So I think he probably knew that that was probably the path he wanted to go down in the long run.