Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Small Cap Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US stocks concluded a strong year with strong gains in Q4. In Q4, the portfolio’s performance was flat and narrowly trailed the Russell 2000® Growth Index. In 2024, the portfolio produced a robust absolute return that was in line with the Russell 2000® Growth Index but outperformed the Russell 2000 Index. In the quarter, its Investor Class fund ARTSX returned 0.61%, Advisor Class fund APDSX posted a return of 0.66%, and Institutional Class fund APHSX returned 0.67%, compared to a return of 1.70% for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to find out its best picks for 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Artisan Small Cap Fund emphasized stocks such as Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS). Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) manufactures and services industrial flow management equipment. The one-month return of Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) was -23.79%, and its shares gained 10.04% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 7, 2025, Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) stock closed at $48.44 per share with a market capitalization of $6.382 billion.
Artisan Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“During the quarter, we initiated new GardenSM positions in VSE, Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) and Integer Holdings. Flowserve is a leading provider of fluid motion and control products and services. The company designs, manufactures and services a wide range of pumps, valves, seals, automation solutions and related systems for industries that require the management and transfer of fluids. As we highlight in the Stewardship Update section later in this letter, we believe the company is in a good position to benefit from rising natural gas production that is being driven by rising baseload power needs for data centers. And within the oil end market, a loosening of regulatory policies could increase production demands.”
A group of industrial workers in coveralls operating a large scale pump system in a factory.
Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 60 hedge fund portfolios held Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 45 in the third quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) 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 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.