Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Asset Fund” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US equities ended the quarter higher for the fourth quarter in a row. The Fed’s long-awaited interest rate cuts and generally positive economic data caused a significant shift from large-cap, Magnificent Seven, growth, and momentum stocks toward value, cyclical, and small-cap stocks. Against this backdrop, Baron Asset Fund returned 8.34% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter, outperforming the Russell Midcap Growth Index’s 6.54% return. The stock returns in the quarter were driven by Earnings Quality and the favorable environment for the firm’s investment strategy. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Asset Fund highlighted stocks like CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) is an information, analytics, and online marketplace services provider for commercial and residential property markets. CoStar Group, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:CSGP) one-month return was -1.22%, and its shares gained 0.71% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 29, 2024, CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) stock closed at $73.24 per share with a market capitalization of $30.378 billion.
Baron Asset Fund stated the following regarding CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Real estate data and marketing platform CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) was negatively impacted by deceleration in net new sales of homes.com, its residential product offering. We remain encouraged by the website traffic growth and growing brand awareness for the platform, and we are optimistic that sales momentum will improve as the company builds out a dedicated residential sales force and enhances its customer targeting. We believe performance in CoStar’s non-residential business remains strong, and we expect to see better organic growth as the commercial real estate market improves and salespeople return to focus exclusively on a single product.”
An elegant residential building set against the modern skyline.
CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 42 hedge fund portfolios held CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) at the end of the second quarter which was 40 in the previous quarter. The third quarter revenue of CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) was $693 million, reflecting a 11% increase year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) 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 CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) and shared the list of best QQQ stocks to buy according to analysts. CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) detracted from the performance of Baron Partners Fund in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.