Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Small Cap Fund” second-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. Equity markets reported mixed results in the second quarter of 2024. However, the broad market Russell 3000 Index and the large-cap-focused Russell 1000 Index advanced approximately 3%, most other market segments posted negative returns. Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund slightly trailed its benchmark, the Russell 2000 Index, in Q2 and returned -3.42% while the benchmark return was -3.28% during the same period. For more information on the fund’s top picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.
Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) is a physician-centric technology-powered healthcare management company. The one-month return of Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) was 3.02%, and its shares gained 17.87% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 7, 2024, Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) stock closed at $46.36 per share with a market capitalization of $2.107 billion.
Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“We continue finding attractively valued, resilient companies the market is overlooking amid its increasingly narrow focus on the mega-cap technology stocks dominating the major indices. In Q2, we initiated new positions in Magnolia Oil & Gas Corp., Thermon Group Holdings and Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH).
Astrana Health is a leading health care provider in select US markets. Its emphasis on value-based care incentivizes physicians to focus on long-term quality and spending rather than performing more services. The opportunity to enter new markets, take more risk on its patient panel and organically add physicians and patients to its network should result in a long growth runway for Astrana. We capitalized on what we consider a reasonable valuation to initiate a new position in the quarter.”
A healthcare professional wearing a health communications device discussing patient data with a colleague.
Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 10 hedge fund portfolios held Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) at the end of the first quarter which was 8 in the previous quarter. Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) delivered $404 million in total revenue, up 20% from Q1 2023, and adjusted EBITDA of $42.2 million, a 42% increase from Q1 2023. While we acknowledge the potential of Astrana Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTH) 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 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.
