Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Small Cap Fund” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In Q4, markets rose unevenly, ending another positive year for markets. Stocks rose generally after the US election, but several lost most or all of their gains before the end of the year. Against this backdrop, the strategy outperformed the Russell 2000 Index in Q4 and for the full year. Relative strength in Q4 was concentrated among industrials holdings outperforming benchmark peers by a wide margin. Additionally, consumer staples and energy holdings also provided relative tailwinds. On the other hand, consumer discretionary holdings were the main cause of strategy’s relative weakness. Even though holdings were quite favorable on an absolute basis, underweight to the technology sector was another headwind in Q4. The strategy returned 0.93% in Q4 and 13.22% in 2024, compared to 0.33% and 11.54% return for Russell 2000 Index for the same periods. For more information on the fund’s top picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund emphasized stocks such as Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM). Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) is a specialty shell egg company that produces, grades, packages, markets, and distributes shell eggs. One-month return of Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) was -5.65%, and its shares gained 89.94% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 12, 2025, Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) stock closed at $106.15 per share with a market capitalization of $5.276 billion.
Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Other top Q4 contributors included Centrus Energy, Graham Corp and Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM). Fresh egg producer Cal-Maine Foods has benefited from an avian flu outbreak, which has led to a significant supply disruption and driven egg prices to record highs, in turn raising Cal-Maine’s share price.”
A close-up of an organic egg being carefully washed and inspected before being packaged.
Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 24 hedge fund portfolios held Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) at the end of the third quarter which was 25 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) 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 Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) and shared the list of best debt free stocks that pay dividends. 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.