Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTMX returned -5.73%, Advisor Class fund APDMX posted a return of -5.67%, and Institutional Class fund APHMX returned -5.64%, compared to a -3.21% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. The portfolio generated negative absolute returns and underperformed the index in the second quarter. Modest negative security selection across multiple sectors, including information technology, industrials, communication services, and health care led to the underperformance and was partially offset by outperformance within consumer discretionary. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) provides cloud networking solutions. The one-month return of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) was 5.26%, and its shares gained 106.46% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 16, 2024, Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) stock closed at $358.23 per share with a market capitalization of $112.256 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Notable trims in the quarter included Chipotle and Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET). Arista Networks is the market leader in cloud networking equipment used in data centers. Shares have experienced strong outperformance since the beginning of 2023 due to its ethernet options being well positioned to capture market share in AI cloud environments (more scalable and cheaper than InfiniBand, an out-of-the-box solution by Nvidia). Similar to Chipotle, after a period of strong performance, we trimmed the position based on valuation and market cap.”
A technician in a server room managing a large-scale network of computers.
Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 69 hedge fund portfolios held Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) at the end of the first quarter which was 64 in the previous quarter. Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) delivered $1.57 billion in revenue in the first quarter 2024, with a non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.99. While we acknowledge the potential of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) 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 Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) and shared the list of best hardware stocks according to hedge funds. 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.
