Wasatch Global Investors, an asset management company, released its “Wasatch Long/Short Alpha Fund” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US small caps experienced modest gains in Q4, driven by presidential election and anticipated economic growth and less regulation. However, markets fell in December as the Federal Reserve hinted that it could have to maintain interest rates higher in 2025 than investors had first anticipated. In this case, the fund fell -8.28% and trailed the benchmark Russell 2500™ Index, which returned 0.62%. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Wasatch Long/Short Alpha Fund emphasized stocks such as ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI). ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) offers management, technology, and policy consulting and implementation services to government and commercial clients. The one-month return of ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) was -11.79%, and its shares lost 41.15% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 18, 2025, ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) stock closed at $89.80 per share with a market capitalization of $1.656 billion.
Wasatch Long/Short Alpha Fund stated the following regarding ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“On the long side, one of the Fund’s largest detractors was ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI). ICF is a technology, management and policy consultant that provides services to government and commercial clients, with the U.S. government accounting for a significant portion of its revenue. The stock dipped in reaction to Donald Trump’s plans to substantially cut government spending. However, we don’t believe those cuts will have much effect on ICF. In fact, if federal government spending cuts are on the way, we could envision a scenario in which departments rely more heavily on consultants such as ICF.”
A consultant talking to their client and presenting data on a digital screen.
ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 27 hedge fund portfolios held ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 19 in the third quarter. The fourth quarter revenue of ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) increased 3.8% year-over-year to $496.3 million. While we acknowledge the potential of ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) 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 ICF International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICFI) and shared the list of best consulting stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.