Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Health Care Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund declined 2.55% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter compared to a 1.02% decline for the Russell 3000 Health Care Index (benchmark) and a 3.22% gain for the Russell 3000 Index (the Index). The underperformance in the quarter was due to active sub-industry/market cap weights. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Health Care Fund highlighted stocks like Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) manufactures and markets da Vinci Surgical System. The one-month return of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) was 0.36%, and its shares gained 43.98% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 1, 2024, Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) stock closed at $450.94 per share with a market capitalization of $157.873 billion.
Baron Health Care Fund stated the following regarding Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) manufactures the da Vinci Surgical System, a robotic surgical system used for minimally invasive procedures. The stock performed well due to excitement about the company’s new robotic surgical system, the da Vinci 5, which offers enhanced imaging, force feedback, and other improvements. We continue to believe Intuitive has durable competitive advantages and will remain the market leader in robotic surgery. We think the company has a long runway for growth as more procedures are performed with the company’s equipment.”
A medical team performing minimally invasive surgery with a da Vinci Surgical System.
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 79 hedge fund portfolios held Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) at the end of the first quarter which was 82 in the previous quarter. Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) reported $2.2 billion in revenues in the second quarter, up 14% from Q2 2023. While we acknowledge the potential of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) 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 Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) and shared top stock recommendations from Jim Cramer’s latest stock portfolio. 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.
