Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTMX returned -5.73%, Advisor Class fund APDMX posted a return of -5.67%, and Institutional Class fund APHMX returned -5.64%, compared to a -3.21% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. The portfolio generated negative absolute returns and underperformed the index in the second quarter. Modest negative security selection across multiple sectors, including information technology, industrials, communication services, and health care led to the underperformance and was partially offset by outperformance within consumer discretionary. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) provides cancer screening and diagnostic test products. The one-month return of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) was 12.24%, and its shares lost 52.04% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 15, 2024, Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) stock closed at $47.05 per share with a market capitalization of $8.682 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Among our top detractors were Lattice Semiconductor, Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) and Celsius. Exact Sciences is a leading provider of diagnostic testing and a maker of the noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test Cologuard®. Shares declined due to investor concerns around competing blood-based tests. Our view has been that blood tests, while potentially more convenient, have historically been unable to match the accuracy of stool testing (especially when it comes to detecting early cancers). In addition, the company may have pushed too aggressively toward profitability in 2023. It is now course-correcting by modestly expanding its sales force and tempering profit growth progress in 2024. At the current valuation, we believe the stock fails to capture Cologuard’s significant long-term growth and margin expansion opportunity as the public health need for materially higher colon cancer screening rates remains significant and supportive of multiple test providers. We continue to hold our position.”
A research team in a laboratory discussing the results of a lab screening test for biomarkers.
Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 48 hedge fund portfolios held Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) at the end of the first quarter which was 39 in the previous quarter. The first quarter revenue of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) was $638 million, up 6% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) 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 Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) and shared the list of best gene therapy stocks to buy. 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.
