Giverny Capital, an asset management firm, published its fourth-quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A quarterly net return of 10.73% was delivered by the fund for the fourth quarter of 2021, slightly below its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index, which delivered an 11.03% gain for the same period. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.
Giverny Capital Asset Management, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) and discussed its stance on the firm. Meta Platforms, Inc. is a Menlo Park, California-based multinational technology conglomerate holding company with a $839.2 billion market capitalization. FB delivered a -10.30% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 16.79%. The stock closed at $301.71 per share on January 28, 2022.
Here is what Giverny Capital Asset Management has to say about Meta Platforms, Inc. in its Q4 2021 investor letter:
“Our number 10 position is the Death Star doppelganger formerly known as Facebook. We can’t say the name Meta Platforms without chuckling and wondering if founder Mark Zuckerberg maybe skipped high school the week they read Romeo & Juliet. “Facebook by any other name would smell just as” … never mind. This company is hated by many, and the name change might feel more like running away from the past than running to the future. But Meta remains the digital town square for some 2.8 billion people worldwide, who for better and worse use it and its sibling Instagram to congregate peaceably and exchange information on their favorite dance moves, vacation destinations and bonkers conspiracy theories. Because so many people spend so much time on Facebook, it is the digital world’s best advertising medium. Importantly, ad monetization outside the US is much lower than domestically, suggesting that despite its size Meta has a long growth runway.
Perhaps I am too flippant here, as Meta causes real harm to society with algorithms that push many toward extreme views and misinformation. But if Meta did not exist, I do not believe the torrential flow of misinformation would slow. People can congregate on the Internet without filters, full stop. The regulation of speech on social media platforms is an issue for responsible, thoughtful government policy. I am unaware of much progress being made.
Meta doubled its revenue and operating profit over the past three years, yet it trades for about the market multiple. There is some anxiety about the impact on Meta of Apple’s decision to make it harder
to track people who use its mobile operating system. I suspect these changes will result in Meta and Alphabet getting stronger over time, as they will have the machine learning capabilities to track
consumers in alternate ways and deliver targeted advertising, while competitors won’t.”
Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Our calculations show that Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) ranks 2nd on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. FB was in 248 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 256 funds in the previous quarter. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) delivered a -6.76% return in the past 3 months.
In December 2021, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on FB in another article. You can find other letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q4 page.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
