Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Value Fund” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US stocks recovered from brief periods of volatility to hit fresh all-time highs in Q3 due to incoming economic data supporting a soft landing, US inflation continuing to slow, and positive underlying profit growth. Against this backdrop, the portfolio generated a solid absolute return but trailed the Russell 1000® Value Index. Due to the absence of real estate and utility holdings, the switch to bond proxies was a performance headwind. The fund’s Investor Class ARTLX, Advisor Class APDLX, and Institutional Class APHLX returned 6.65%, 6.69%, and 6.69% respectively, in the third quarter compared to a 9.43% return for the Russell 1000 Value Index. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the strategy to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Value Fund highlighted stocks like PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) is a technology platform that enables digital payments. The one-month return of PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) was 9.38%, and its shares gained 53.66% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On November 13, 2024, PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) stock closed at $87.31 per share with a market capitalization of $87.532 billion.
Artisan Value Fund stated the following regarding PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Our top contributor was PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL), a financial technology company that enables digital and mobile payments between consumers and merchants. PayPal was a recent new purchase added to the portfolio in Q2. Better growth in payment volumes and transaction margins during PayPal’s latest quarter offered evidence that the new management team’s efforts are gaining traction. Notably, payment service provider Braintree returned to providing positive transaction margin, branded checkout contributed strongly to payment volume growth, and monetization at Venmo showed progress. Post-COVID, PayPal’s shares had been pressured by intensifying competition, the threat of which was seemingly exacerbated by prior management missteps. Shares traded for under 14X next year’s expected earnings at the time of our initial purchase. This was an attractive entry point to purchase a stake in a business with above-average—and improving—unit economics, a strong balance sheet and consistent free cash flow. Competent new management is already leaning on the company’s strong financial position to maximize the value of these assets.”
A consumer in a cafe paying for goods using a mobile payment app.
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 87 hedge fund portfolios held PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) at the end of the second quarter which was 82 in the previous quarter. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) reported $7.8 billion in revenue in the third quarter, up 6% on a currency neutral basis. While we acknowledge the potential of PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) 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 PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) and shared the list of best stocks under $100 to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.