Ariel Investments, an investment management company, released its “Ariel Fund” third-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Due to the economy’s resilience and forecasters’ expectations of a soft landing, all major U.S. indices saw gains in the third quarter. The Federal Reserve turned its attention to the state of the labor market as interest rate reduction was implemented. Against this backdrop, Ariel Fund appreciated +12.08% in Q3 outperforming both the Russell 2500 Value and Russell 2500 indices, which returned +9.63% and +8.75%. For more information on the fund’s top picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.
Ariel Fund highlighted stocks like The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) manufactures and services foodservice, food processing, and residential kitchen equipment. The one-month return of The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) was -1.00%, and its shares gained 9.77% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 14, 2024, The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) stock closed at $137.80 per share with a market capitalization of $7.409 billion.
Ariel Fund stated the following regarding The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Additionally, we added former holding The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD), which is a leading food equipment manufacturer. While the shares have been under pressure due to the challenging macro-backdrop and related concerns around new restaurant openings, we view these headwinds as transient. Longer term, MIDD’s differentiated brands and focus on innovation should enable the company to benefit from secular demand for more automation and efficiency in the food service industry.”
A professional kitchen bustling with activity, utilizing different pieces of Kitchen Equipment, such as Conveyor Ovens, Fryers, Steam Cookers and Warming Equipment.
The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 25 hedge fund portfolios held The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) at the end of the second quarter which was 28 in the previous quarter. The Middleby Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MIDD) revenues for the second quarter were $992 million, up 7% from the first quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) 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 The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) and shared the list of most undervalued industrial stocks to buy according to analysts. The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) declined in the previous quarter due to earnings miss and detracted from the performance of Ariel Small Cap Value Strategy. 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.