Conestoga Capital Advisors, an asset management company, released its “Small Cap Strategy” second-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The second quarter of 2024 may be regarded as a time of moderation. Economic indicators largely reflected slowing growth and easing inflation. Equity markets are also driven by the moderation theme. Large-cap stocks, as measured by the S&P 500, rose 3.9% in the second quarter, however, small-cap stocks lagged again, with the Russell 2000 Index declining -3.3% and the Russell 2000 Growth Index declining -2.9%. Conestoga Small Cap Composite fell -5.59% in the second quarter compared to -2.92% for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. Stock selection was the major reason for the underperformance of the portfolio relative to the index. Please check the top 5 holdings of the fund for a better understanding of their best picks for 2024.
Conestoga Capital Advisors highlighted stocks like Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) offers software and cloud solutions for simulation, high-performance computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. The one-month return of Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) was 1.81%, and its shares gained 49.68% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 15, 2024, Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) stock closed at $91.35 per share with a market capitalization of $7.754 billion.
Conestoga Capital Advisors stated the following regarding Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR: ALTR, a leader in design and simulation software, reported strong results during the quarter, beating across all metrics. ALTR is seeing strong demand across many verticals, notably in aerospace, defense, and automotive. During the second quarter, ALTR launched SimSolid for electronics. This extends SimSolid, which is ALTR’s proprietary and rapidly growing mechanical mesh solution, into electronics. ALTR believes it can capture electronics share as Synopsys is distracted during its acquisition of Ansys. ALTR has been a leader in two of the past three quarters.”
A computer programmer developing a software application for high-performance computing.
Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 21 hedge fund portfolios held Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) at the end of the first quarter which was 17 in the previous quarter. The total revenue of Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) in the second quarter was $148.8 million, represents a 5.4% year-over year increase. While we acknowledge the potential of Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) 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 Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) and shared the list of best 3D printing and additive manufacturing stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
