Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Mid Cap Strategy” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Q4 witnessed an uneven increase in markets, capping off yet another positive year for the markets. In general, equities rose after the US election, but some gave up most or all of those gains by the end of the year. The portfolio trailed the Russell Midcap Index in Q4 and for the full year. The strategy returned -2.18% (gross) and -2.35% (net) in the quarter compared to 0.62% for the index. For the full year, the strategy returned 11.39% (gross) and 10.61% (net) compared to 15.34% return for the index. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the strategy to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Diamond Hill Mid Cap Strategy emphasized stocks such as Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN). Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) is a global provider of hardware and software services for communication networks. The one-month return of Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) was -26.86%, and its shares gained 32.69% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 17, 2025, Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) stock closed at $65.68 per share with a market capitalization of $9.336 billion.
Diamond Hill Mid Cap Strategy stated the following regarding Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“On an individual holdings’ basis, top contributors to return in Q4 included Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) and WESCO. Networking systems company Ciena is benefiting from continued demand from cloud customers and stabilization from service providers, giving a boost to shares in the quarter.”
An aerial view of a large telecommunications network covering a city skyline.
Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 52 hedge fund portfolios held Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 40 in the third quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) 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 Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) and shared AI news updates investors should not miss. Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) contributed positively to Diamond Hill Mid Cap Strategy’s performance in the previous quarter as well. 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.