Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron FinTech Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund declined 2.25% (Institutional Shares) compared to a (5.78)% return for the FactSet Global FinTech Index (Benchmark) and a 4.28% gain for the S&P 500 index. US equities rose with major market indices reaching all-time highs during the second quarter. Overwhelming corporate results were accompanied by mixed economic data that points to further moderation of inflation. However, the rally was concentrated and driven by mega-cap technology companies. The fund’s smaller market cap profile and lack of exposure to the Magnificent Seven led the fund to underperform the broader market. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron FinTech Fund highlighted stocks like Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) is a Luxembourg-based technology services company. The one-month return of Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) was -7.83%, and its shares gained 8.22% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 12, 2024, Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) stock closed at $185.17 per share with a market capitalization of $8 billion.
Baron FinTech Fund stated the following regarding Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“We trimmed Accenture plc and Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) due to continued weak demand for IT services. Business customers are spending on cost-optimization projects, while discretionary spending on revenue-generating projects remains under pressure. We had expected GenAI excitement to be a more meaningful contributor to demand by now, but GenAI-related projects represent a small portion of revenue, AI infrastructure spending is crowding out software spending, and uncertainty about the impact of GenAI is likely causing delays in client decision-making. We believe most of these issues are temporary and expect growth to eventually improve, but we redeployed the proceeds from these sales into higher conviction ideas.”
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Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 32 hedge fund portfolios held Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) at the end of the first quarter which was 26 in the previous quarter. Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) generated $571.1 million in revenues in the first quarter, a 20.9% increase year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) 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 Globant S.A. (NYSE:GLOB) and shared Next Century Growth Small Cap Strategy’s views on the company in the previous quarter. 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.
