Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron FinTech Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund declined 2.25% (Institutional Shares) compared to a (5.78)% return for the FactSet Global FinTech Index (Benchmark) and a 4.28% gain for the S&P 500 index. US equities rose with major market indices reaching all-time highs during the second quarter. Overwhelming corporate results were accompanied by mixed economic data that points to further moderation of inflation. However, the rally was concentrated and driven by mega-cap technology companies. The fund’s smaller market cap profile and lack of exposure to the Magnificent Seven led the fund to underperform the broader market. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron FinTech Fund highlighted stocks like Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is a professional services company. The one-month return of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) was -0.64%, and its shares gained 1.32% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 9, 2024, Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) stock closed at $315.83 per share with a market capitalization of $197.831 billion.
Baron FinTech Fund stated the following regarding Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“We trimmed Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) and Globant S.A. due to continued weak demand for IT services. Business customers are spending on cost-optimization projects, while discretionary spending on revenue-generating projects remains under pressure. We had expected GenAI excitement to be a more meaningful contributor to demand by now, but GenAI-related projects represent a small portion of revenue, AI infrastructure spending is crowding out software spending, and uncertainty about the impact of GenAI is likely causing delays in client decision-making. We believe most of these issues are temporary and expect growth to eventually improve, but we redeployed the proceeds from these sales into higher conviction ideas.”
A team of data experts gathered around a computer monitor analyzing customer data.
Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 57 hedge fund portfolios held Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) at the end of the first quarter which was 58 in the previous quarter. Accenture plc’s (NYSE:ACN) revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2024 were $16.5 billion, a 1% decline in US dollars. While we acknowledge the potential of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) 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 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) and shared the list of best consulting stocks to buy. Aristotle Atlantic Core Equity Strategy sold its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during Q2 2024. 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.
