Pershing Square Holdings, an investment holding company, released its first half 2024 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. It has been a productive year for Pershing Square, despite a slight decline in performance year-to-date through August 13, 2024. The Company’s NAV per share, including dividends, climbed by 5.7% during the first half of 2024 and fell by 2.3% for year-to-date through August 13, 2024, and its share price increased by 14.7% and decreased by 2.9%, respectively. The S&P 500 increased by 15.3% and 14.9% over the same period. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.
Pershing Square Holdings highlighted stocks like Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q2 2024 investor letter. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the parent company of Google, offers various platforms and services operating through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The one-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was -0.90%, and its shares gained 28.53% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 21, 2024, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock closed at $167.63 per share with a market capitalization of $2.052 trillion.
Pershing Square Holdings stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the parent company of Google, delivered stellar business results in the first half of 2024. Revenues grew 14% powered by Google’s dominant position in the fast-growing digital advertising market as well as certain company-specific tailwinds including the increasing adoption of AI automation tools by advertisers and YouTube’s continued success in the Connected TV Medium. Strong revenue growth coupled with cost control initiatives and stable staffing levels (headcount has remained flat year-to-date), resulted in strong operating leverage. Operating profit margins expanded approximately 340 basis points, excluding one-time severance and real estate charges. In the second quarter, the company’s Cloud segment outpaced its major competitors with 29% revenue growth and achieved 11% profit margins, after first reaching profitability just 18 months ago.
Amidst solid financial performance, Google is achieving notable milestones in its AI product development roadmap. At its annual developer conference in early May, the company unveiled the broad rollout of “AI Overviews”, which are AI-powered summary responses for certain types of queries. Early results from AI Overviews highlight how thoughtful integration of AI into Search not only improves the user experience, leading to more frequent and detailed queries, but also creates opportunities for greater ad monetization through context-rich responses and higher conversion rates…” (Click here to read the full text)
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Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in 7th position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 165 hedge fund portfolios held Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of the second quarter which was 165 in the previous quarter. In the first quarter Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) generated $80.5 billion in revenues, up 15% year-over-year (see the details here). While we acknowledge the potential of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) 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 Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and shared the list of best advertising stocks to buy according to short sellers. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was a significant contributor to the returns of multiple investment firms in Q2 2024 like Wedgewood Partners and Artisan Select Equity Fund. 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.
