Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Small Cap Fund” first-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. A general sense of optimism was prevalent in the market, driven by the conviction that the economy remained robust, inflation was moderating, and rate cuts were anticipated shortly. Baron Small Cap Fund had an outstanding first quarter and performed well ahead of the Russell 2000 Growth Index (the Benchmark). The fund returned 11.81% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter while the benchmark returned 7.58%. One-third of the benchmark’s performance was driven by the anomalous performance of one stock, Super Micro Computer, Inc, which tripled in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) engages in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of various products and services dedicated to food and animal safety. The one-month return of Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) was 6.76%, and its shares lost 22.50% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 24, 2024, Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) stock closed at $13.26 per share with a market capitalization of $2.872 billion.
Baron Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“Shares of Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) , a leading provider of food and animal safety products, detracted from performance. While end-market challenges appear to be bottoming, this improvement is happening at a slower pace than the company had forecast, which caused it to lower fiscal year 2024 guidance. Neogen also continues to deal with issues integrating the assets of 3M’s Food Safety business, its pivotal recent acquisition. We think that the company will be a juggernaut when this integration is behind it and that the stock has huge potential, so we have been adding to our position amid near-term troubles.”
Neogen Corporation’s (NASDAQ:NEOG) trailing 12 months revenue is $929.24 million and year over year quarterly revenue growth rate is 4.80%. Neogen Corporation’s (NASDAQ:NEOG) first-quarter revenues were $229 million, according to a recent earnings call.
Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 17 hedge fund portfolios held Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) at the end of the first quarter which was 17 in the previous quarter.
In another article, we discussed Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) and shared the list of oversold growth stocks to buy. Conestoga Capital Advisors commented about Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) in the recent quarterly letter. 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.