Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Select Strategy” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Q4 saw an uneven increase in markets, capping off yet another strong year for the markets. Stocks rose generally after the US election, but several lost most or all of their gains before the end of the year. The portfolio trailed the Russell 3000 Index in Q4 and for the full year. In Q4, the strategy returned -1.67% (net) vs 2.63% returns for the index and in 2024 the strategy returned 13.14% (net) vs 23.81% returns for the index. To get an idea of the fund’s best choices for 2024, check out its top 5 positions.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Diamond Hill Select Strategy emphasized stocks such as Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR). Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) manufactures and distributes engineered materials and optoelectronic components and devices. The one-month return Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) was -16.86%, and its shares gained 8.55% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 20, 2025, Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) stock closed at $68.71 per share with a market capitalization of $10.648 billion.
Diamond Hill Select Strategy stated the following regarding Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Among our other top Q4 contributors were Amazon, WESCO and Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR). Coherent is a global leader in materials, networking and lasers for the industrial, communications, electronics and instrumentation markets. Demand for optical transceivers used in AI datacenter buildouts has been robust, benefiting Coherent and resulting in higher earnings and new orders which suggest momentum is likely to continue.”
A row of precision industrial lasers in action, cutting the most intricate of shapes.
Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 71 hedge fund portfolios held Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 51 in the previous quarter. Coherent Corp.’s (NYSE:COHR) revenue increased by approximately 6% sequentially and 27% year-over-year in the fiscal second quarter to a record $1.43 billion. While we acknowledge the potential of Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) 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 Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) and shared the list of top AI news updates investors probably missed. 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.