Bretton Capital Management, an investment management company, released “Bretton Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The market is experiencing a period of high returns, with two consecutive years of around 25% returns and 15 years of mid-teens returns, prompting investors to be cautious. The average stock market return is around 9-10% per year, historically, based on corporate earnings growth and dividends and buybacks. The 20 companies the fund owns are well-positioned and expected to perform well. Against this backdrop, in the fourth quarter, the fund returned -0.98% compared to 2.41% return for the S&P 500. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Bretton Fund emphasized stocks such as American Express Company (NYSE:AXP). American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) operates as an integrated payments company. The one-month return of American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) was -0.49%, and its shares gained 46.33% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 14, 2025, American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) stock closed at $311.04 per share with a market capitalization of $218.52 billion.
Bretton Fund stated the following regarding American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) was our best performing stock last year, returning 60%, which was on top of 2023’s 29%. Its premium credit cards are more popular than ever, and its moderately affluent customer base continues to spend. American Express did especially well signing up younger cardholders, a great sign that its growth can be sustained for years to come. The combination of healthy revenue growth and tight expense control led to an earnings-per-share growth of 25%.”
A close-up view of a payment terminal, capturing the sophistication of a payment network.
American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 62 hedge fund portfolios held American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) at the end of the third quarter which was 68 in the previous quarter. In 2024, American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) reported a record revenue of $66 billion, up 10% on an FX adjusted basis. While we acknowledge the potential of American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) 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 American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) and shared the list of best dividend stocks from the financial sector. 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.