Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron FinTech Fund” first quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the first quarter, the fund rose 4.83% (Institutional Shares) compared to an 8.24% gain for the FactSet Global FinTech Index and a 7.50% gain for the S&P 500 benchmark index. Against a confusing market backdrop, the Fund appreciated during the first quarter yet trailed the Benchmark and the broader market. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron FinTech Fund highlighted stocks like CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Campinas, Brazil, CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) is a strategy, design, and software engineering services provider to enable digital transformation. On June 5, 2023, CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) stock closed at $4.99 per share. One-month return of CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) was 33.33%, and its shares lost 63.87% of their value over the last 52 weeks. CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) has a market capitalization of $667.941 million.
Baron FinTech Fund made the following comment about CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:
“Unfavorable stock selection in Tech-Enabled Financials coupled with unique exposure to Digital IT Services accounted for most of the underperformance relative to the Benchmark. Weakness in Tech-Enabled Financials was driven by declines from online brokerage firm The Charles Schwab Corp. and independent broker-dealer LPL Financial Holdings Inc. as multiple bank failures caused investors to sour on financial stocks. We remain shareholders and offer additional details on Schwab and LPL later in this letter. Similar to last quarter, the Fund’s unique exposure to Digital IT Services proved costly as outsourced software development providers Endava plc, Globant S.A., and CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) were negatively impacted by concerns about macroeconomic uncertainty weighing on client demand. We retain conviction given our belief that these companies will continue growing rapidly in a large global market for IT services. Within Information Services and Enterprise Software, the Fund’s relative underperformance was largely driven by stocks that we didn’t own as several of last year’s biggest losers in the Benchmark rebounded to become this year’s biggest winners, at least so far. We seek to invest in long-term winners, so the Fund tends to underperform during speculative rallies in lower-quality stocks. We are undaunted by this short-term phenomenon and expect that it will be short-lived.”
CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 1 hedge fund portfolios held CI&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) at the end of first quarter 2023 which was 2 in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2023 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.