Hayden Capital’s Thesis on its Investment in Applovin (APP)

Hayden Capital, an investment management firm, released its second-quarter 2024 investment letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Driven by the core positions, the portfolio rose in the past few months. The firm is currently seeing signs of market stabilization following the erratic macroeconomic environment of the past few years. In the second quarter, the portfolio generated a 7.0% return compared to a 4.3% return for the S&P 500 and a 2.9% return for the MSCI World Index. The firm’s assets are invested in Asia at approximately 57%, in North America at approximately 41%, and the remainder in cash. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.

Hayden Capital highlighted stocks like AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) develops a software-based platform for advertisers to enhance the marketing and monetization of their content. The one-month return of AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) was 16.90%, and its shares gained 106.12% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 6, 2024, AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) stock closed at $84.57 per share with a market capitalization of $29.24 billion.

Hayden Capital stated the following regarding AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:

“AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP): I have mentioned our Applovin investment a few times in prior letters, but realize I’ve never discussed it in full depth. Recently there have been quite a few developments, so I thought now is a good time to dedicate some time and lay out our thoughts going forward.

 Applovin is an advertising network for mobile apps (in particular, casual mobile games). Essentially, they are a market-maker for those looking to buy and sell ads – helping apps acquire users and monetize themselves, in an extremely competitive industry.

One might think this is a niche business, but the company facilitates over $10 billion dollars of volume annually for its mobile gaming clients, and is expected to make $4.4BN in revenue, $2.5BN in EBITDA, and $1.8BN in Free Cash Flow this year. They are the third largest mobile ad network after Google and Meta, are the largest mediation platform, and has over 1 billion daily active users…” (Click here to read the full text)

A close-up of a mobile device, showing an advertiser reaching out to a consumer via a software-based platform.

AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 54 hedge fund portfolios held AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) at the end of the second quarter which was 51 in the previous quarter. In the second quarter, AppLovin Corporation’s (NASDAQ:APP) revenue increased 44% year over year to $1.08 billion. While we acknowledge the potential of AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) 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 AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) and shared the list of hidden AI 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.