Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Emerging Markets Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund experienced an excellent quarter to end another successful year. The fund declined 7.35% (Institutional Shares) in the fourth quarter compared to a -8.01% return for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (the Benchmark) and a (6.84)% return for the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI Growth Index (the Proxy Benchmark). For the full year, the fund returned 7.90% compared to 7.50% and 9.44% gains for the indexes. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Baron Emerging Markets Fund emphasized stocks such as Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA). Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) provides technology infrastructure and marketing reach. The one-month return of Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) was 34.37%, and its shares gained 66.12% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 24, 2025, Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) stock closed at $129.04 per share with a market capitalization of $331.948 billion.
Baron Emerging Markets Fund stated the following regarding Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is the largest retailer and e-commerce company in China. Alibaba operates shopping platforms Taobao and Tmall as well as businesses in logistics, local services, digital media, and cloud. Shares fell on continued weakness in core domestic commerce growth. Quarterly results were roughly in line with expectations, with relative strength in profitability, but the timing for acceleration in core gross merchandise value is still unclear. We retain conviction that Alibaba is well positioned to benefit from China’s ongoing growth in online commerce and cloud in China, though competitive market concerns remain.”
An e-commerce platform displaying a wide range of products to customers online.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is in 17th position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 107 hedge fund portfolios held Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 115 in the third quarter. Alibaba Group Holding Limited’s (NYSE:BABA) consolidated revenue for fiscal third quarter of 2025 was RMB 280.2 billion, an 8% rise from previous year’s same quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we discussed Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) and shared the list of AI stocks taking Wall Street by storm. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.