Manole Capital Management, an investment management company, focused on covering the Financial and Technology sectors, released its second quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The letter discussed the pending debt ceiling crisis, a few macro issues like the money market and stock market, household savings, the labor environment, the Fed, inflation trends, and interest rates. The majority of the letter is focused on specific Fintech and financial issues. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Manole Capital Management highlighted stocks like Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in the second quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a multinational technology company. On July 6, 2023, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock closed at $120.93 per share. One-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was -1.58%, and its shares gained 0.63% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has a market capitalization of $1.53 trillion.
Manole Capital Management made the following comment about Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Despite this, the S&P 500 is up 7% this year and the Nasdaq is up +11%. Technology rebounded from a challenging 2022 and many large tech companies are performing quite well this year. Through mid-May 2023, year-to-date performance of some of the most popular and largest names tech names is impressive. For tech companies with market capitalizations over $1 trillion, Apple is up +35%, Microsoft +33%, Amazon +39%, and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is +40%. If you add in Nvdia, Google and Meta, you have three quarters of the entire S&P 500’s year-to-date return.
For our purposes, we are just going to focus on software digital wallets, as they are much more common and accessible. If you own an iPhone, then you have an Apple Pay pre-loaded digital wallet. If you have a Samsung phone, you have Samsung Pay available for use. Those two, along with Google Pay and PayPal, are the four most popular digital wallets today. According to the Payments Journal, PayPal has been used (over the last 12 months) by 62% of American consumers, followed by Apple Pay at 41% and Google Pay at 32%.
We are loyal Apple users (iPhones, iPads, iMac) and find their Apple Pay to be a convenient and safe digital wallet to use. It is currently accepted at more than 90% of US retailers, so it clearly has widespread adoption. Samsung and Google users also seem pleased with their preferred digital wallets. In our opinion, these new entrants are “a bit too late to the party” to make a meaningful dent versus established players.
As of today, both Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay have a distinct advantage in the digital wallet arena. These three firms have spent billions of dollars ensuring that their apps are easy to use on their smartphones. Plus, and maybe more importantly, the consumer experience is embedded and native to the operating system. This ties their digital wallet to the device, which cannot be replicated.”
Pixabay/Public Domain
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in 6th position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 155 hedge fund portfolios held Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of first quarter which was 152 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in another article and shared the list of best major stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2023 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.
