Aristotle Atlantic Partners, LLC, an investment advisor, released its “Core Equity Strategy” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the U.S. equity market reached a record high. Aristotle Atlantic’s Core Equity strategy returned 5.61% gross of fees (5.51% net of fees) in the quarter outperforming the S&P 500 Index’s 4.28% total return. The relative outperformance was due to security selection. Security selection in Information Technology and Health Care contributed the most to relative performance while Consumer Staples and Consumer Discretionary detracted. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.
Aristotle Atlantic Core Equity Strategy highlighted stocks like Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) engages in the rail transportation of raw materials, intermediate products, and finished goods in the United States. The one-month return of Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) was 6.87%, and its shares lost 3.86% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 22, 2024, Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) stock closed at $228.03 per share with a market capitalization of $51.515 billion.
Aristotle Atlantic Core Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) detracted from performance in the second quarter. The company reported a worse-than-expected earnings result for its first quarter in late April. In the second quarter, the company has been reporting weaker-than-expected railcar volumes on its network. This weaker volume has resulted in some sell-side analysts reducing their estimates for the second quarter of 2024. In addition, sentiment is weak because an activist shareholder was not successful in replacing the CEO of Norfolk Southern during a proxy battle in May; however, the activist did succeed in replacing some board members.”
A bird’s eye view of a long freight train rumbling along the tracks.
Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) was held by 54 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first quarter, compared to 50 in the previous quarter, according to our database. The first quarter revenue of Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) was just above $3 billion, down 4% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) 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 Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) and shared the list of stocks targeted by activist investors. 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.
