Madison Investments, an investment advisor, released its “Madison Dividend Income Fund” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the fourth quarter, the fund (Class I) appreciated -1.7% and outperformed the -2.0% and -1.8% returns for the Russell 1000 Value, and Lipper Equity Income peer group and compared to the S&P 500’s +2.4% return. For the full year, the fund returned +7.7% compared to +14.4%, +14.1% and +25.0% returns for the indexes. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Madison Dividend Income Fund emphasized stocks such as TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL). TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL) manufactures and sells connectivity and sensor solutions. The one-month return of TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) was 4.84%, and its shares gained 7.28% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 14, 2025, TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) stock closed at $152.77 per share with a market capitalization of $45.579 billion.
Madison Dividend Income Fund stated the following regarding TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“The Fund also purchased TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) in the Technology sector. TEL is a leading manufacturer of connectors and sensors that help protect the flow of power and data in end market applications. We believe it has a sustainable competitive advantage due to leading market share of the global connector market with a dominant position in automotive connectors, strong pricing power, high customer switching costs and intangible assets.
TEL revenues didn’t grow over the past two years and now appear to be on the cusp of inflecting higher as end markets recover, driven by new growth opportunities in electric and autonomous vehicles, renewable energy, factory automation, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing applications. As shown on the next page, TEL had a relative dividend yield of 1.4x the S&P 500, which was also at the high end of its historical range. The company has a strong balance sheet and has raised its dividend an average of 7% over the past five years. We expect more dividend increases going forward.”
A technician assembling a sensor on an automated assembly line.
TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 44 hedge fund portfolios held TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) at the end of the third quarter which was 46 in the previous quarter. Increased currency exchange headwinds during the fiscal first quarter of 2025 negatively affected TE Connectivity plc’s (NYSE:TEL) sales of $3.84 billion. While we acknowledge the potential of TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) 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 TE Connectivity plc (NYSE:TEL) and shared the list of chip stocks in focus amid the tech sector selloff. 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.