Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Small Cap Fund” first quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Equity markets surged at the beginning of 2024 in anticipation of the US economy entering a “goldilocks” scenario – a soft landing combined with decreasing inflation, potentially leading to a cut in interest rates by the Fed. In the first quarter, its Investor Class fund ARTSX returned 9.43%, Advisor Class fund APDSX posted a return of 9.42%, and Institutional Class fund APHSX returned 9.48%, compared to a return of 7.58% for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) is an electronic trading platform for institutional investors and broker-dealer companies. The one-month return of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) was 6.27%, and its shares lost 22.34% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 24, 2024, MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) stock closed at $216.89 per share with a market capitalization of $8.219 billion.
Artisan Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“Among our top detractors in Q1 were Veracyte, Workiva and MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX). As one of the leading US electronic credit trading networks, we believe MarketAxess is in a pole position to capture trading volume market share as global credit markets shift to electronic trading venues. Unfortunately, during the first quarter, the company provided disappointing earnings results, and its shares declined. We believe this was because of elevated levels of new debt issuance, where transactions typically occur with dealers rather than electronic exchanges. Despite the near-term setback, we believe this transition is still in its early stages within US investment-grade corporate bonds, US high yield corporate bonds, emerging market corporate bonds and Eurobonds. Additionally, other opportunities, such as municipal and US Treasury bonds, are even earlier in their transition to electronic trading.”
A trader in a busy trading room, surrounded by real-time market data and automated execution services.
MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 30 hedge fund portfolios held MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) at the end of the first quarter which was 27 in the previous quarter. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) delivered revenue of $210 million in the first quarter, up 4% from the prior year.
In another article, we discussed MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) and shared the list of worst performing stocks in S&P 500. Polen U.S. SMID Company Growth Strategy added MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) to its portfolio in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 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.
