Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Small Cap Fund” first quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Equity markets surged at the beginning of 2024 in anticipation of the US economy entering a “goldilocks” scenario – a soft landing combined with decreasing inflation, potentially leading to a cut in interest rates by the Fed. In the first quarter, its Investor Class fund ARTSX returned 9.43%, Advisor Class fund APDSX posted a return of 9.42%, and Institutional Class fund APHSX returned 9.48%, compared to a return of 7.58% for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) offers manufacturing solutions to various brands. The one-month return of Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) was 13.56%, and its shares gained 76.00% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 24, 2024, Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) stock closed at $33.17 per share with a market capitalization of $13.322 billion
Artisan Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“We initiated new GardenSM positions in Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX), On Holding and Onto Innovation during the quarter. Flex provides outsourced electronic manufacturing services to a diverse set of end markets. The company hired a new CEO in 2020, who has been driving a strategic pivot toward manufacturing high-value products in areas such as health care, industrial, automotive and cloud infrastructure. Today, these higher value items account for ~60% of revenues, and we believe they will continue to tick higher. We also believe an improving business mix, along with the reshoring of supply chains, will lead to faster growth and higher margins.”
An engineer with a pen and paper designing a switchgear circuit diagram.
Flex Ltd.’s (NASDAQ:FLEX) total revenue in the quarter decreased by 12% to $6.2 billion. But gross profit increased to $532 million, and the gross margin was 8.6%, up 160 basis points from the previous year.
Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 44 hedge fund portfolios held Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) at the end of the first quarter which was 55 in the previous quarter.
In another article, we discussed Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) and shared the list of best electronic stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 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.
