Columbia Threadneedle Investments, an investment management company released its “Columbia Seligman Global Technology Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The U.S. stock market rose 2.75% in Q4, bringing its full-year return to 24.51%, as measured by the Russell 1000 Index. The November election result removed investor uncertainty, raising hopes for pro-growth government policies. In addition, U.S. equities remained attractive due to high economic growth. The fund’s Institutional Class shares returned 7.45% in the quarter, compared to a 4.61% return for the MSCI World Information Technology Index-Net. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings for its best picks for 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Columbia Seligman Global Technology Fund emphasized stocks such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a multinational software company that develops and supports software, services, devices, and solutions. The one-month return of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was -6.64%, and its shares lost 9.87% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 12, 2025, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock closed at $383.27 per share with a market capitalization of $2.85 trillion.
Columbia Seligman Global Technology Fund stated the following regarding Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Within software, the fund maintained an underweight position to Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), which proved beneficial as share price for the company fell during the fourth quarter. Microsoft’s outlook for its Azure business came down slightly, which hampered the stock price at times during the quarter and, combined with losses on the Open AI business, led to a disappointing end to 2024. The company has guided its capital expenditure spending up slightly and investors continue to wait for additional monetization from the company’s large commitment to AI infrastructure spending. The fund continued to hold an overweight allocation to Oracle as we believe Oracle is positioned to be a major beneficiary of the AI rollout and has the potential to compete with other large cloud providers, such as Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft. Oracle shares moved lower during the quarter and the stock suffered its worst day of the year in December, as the company narrowly underperformed analysts’ average estimates. Oracle’s business model remains strong as demand for computer power that can handle AI is increasing and the company’s revenues from its cloud infrastructure unit moved higher year over year.”
A development team working together to create the next version of Windows.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in second position our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 317 hedge fund portfolios held Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 279 in the third quarter. In the fiscal second quarter of 2025, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported $69.6 billion in revenues, up 12% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) 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 Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and shared the list of best QQQ stocks to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.