Third Point Management, a New York-based investment advisor, released its second-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Third Point Offshore Fund returned 1.8% net in the second quarter compared to a 4.3% return for the S&P 500 INDEX (TR) and a 2.8% return for the MSCI WORLD INDEX (TR). In the first half of 2024, the Offshore Fund made profits across all strategies, achieving a 9.8% net return. Over the previous 12 months, the fund yielded a 17.0% net return. Although technology businesses accounted for a major portion of returns over this period, much of the portfolio is invested in various sectors, such as utilities, industrials, consumer, and healthcare. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Third Point Management highlighted stocks like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is an American multinational company that designs, manufactures, and markets smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories. The one-month return of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was 3.94%, and its shares gained 25.89% of their value over the last three months. On August 23, 2024, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock closed at $226.84 per share with a market capitalization of $3.449 trillion.
Third Point Management stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
In April, we took a position in Apple, the world’s leading consumer technology franchise, with an ecosystem of 2.2 billion devices spanning a broad array of form factors including smartphones, tablets, laptops, watches, earphones, and smart home devices. Apple excels in most of these device categories, with revenue share of 50-60% in several key markets.
Despite Apple’s dominance as a business, its stock had become increasingly “under-owned” by institutional investors and its relative multiple had compressed toward a multi-year low. We believe that this was due to several years of stagnant earnings growth, exacerbated by more recent fears that Apple may turn out to be an AI loser. Our research led us to a different conclusion: we believe AI-related demand could drive a step change improvement in Apple’s revenue and earnings over the next few years…” (Click here to read the full text)
An Apple store displaying the latest in consumer electronics, from smartphones to wearables.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in 9th position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 184 hedge fund portfolios held Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at the end of the second quarter which was 150 in the previous quarter. In the June quarter Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) delivered $85.8 billion in revenues, up 5% from a year ago. While we acknowledge the potential of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) 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 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and shared the list of top eco-friendly companies in 2024. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
