Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Small Cap Fund” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund was down 0.99% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter trailing the Russell 2000 Growth Index’s 1.70% return and the broader Russell 3000 Index’s 2.63% return. For the year the Fund was up 13.61% compared to 15.15% and 23.81% returns for the indexes. Although the fund’s performance this year did not surpass the benchmark, its long-term results are significantly better. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) in the fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is a clinical research organization. The one-month return of ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) was -5.13%, and its shares lost 22.56% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 30, 2024, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) stock closed at $201.72 per share with a market capitalization of $16.654 billion.
Baron Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is a leading contract research organization (CRO) that provides outsourced services to the biopharmaceutical industry. Shares fell on weak quarterly results and lowered 2024 guidance. Like other CROs, ICON is facing headwinds due to tighter management of R&D spend by pharmaceuticals, less biotechnology funding availability, a greater number of project delays and cancellations, and an industry shift in preferred business models from full to functional outsourcing. While we expect these headwinds will persist into at least the first half of 2025, we believe pharmaceutical R&D spend will continue to grow and global providers like ICON are well positioned to expand and gain share over time, returning to double-digit EPS growth. With the stock near all-time low valuations, we are holding.”
A laboratory setting with a team of scientists working on a clinical trial.
ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 48 hedge fund portfolios held ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) at the end of the third quarter which was 54 in the previous quarter. ICON Public Limited Company’s (NASDAQ:ICLR) third quarter revenue was $2.03 billion, represents a year-on-year decrease of 1.2% or 1% on a constant currency basis. While we acknowledge the potential of ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) 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 ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) and shared AI news and ratings too important to miss. FMI International Equity Strategy added ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) to its portfolio in December 2024. 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.