Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Small Cap Fund” first-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. A general sense of optimism was prevalent in the market, driven by the conviction that the economy remained robust, inflation was moderating, and rate cuts were anticipated shortly. Baron Small Cap Fund had an outstanding first quarter and performed well ahead of the Russell 2000 Growth Index (the Benchmark). The fund returned 11.81% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter while the benchmark returned 7.58%. One-third of the benchmark’s performance was driven by the anomalous performance of one stock, Super Micro Computer, Inc, which tripled in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) is a science and engineering consulting company. The one-month return of Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) was 3.30%, and its shares gained 4.67% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 24, 2024, Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) stock closed at $96.28 per share with a market capitalization of $4.879 billion.
Baron Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) is a leading engineering & scientific consulting firm. Around half of the business is reactive work where the company gets brought in to determine the root cause of an event such as car recalls, oil spills, and wildfires; and the remainder is proactive work where clients engage Exponent before an issue arises to help with risk management and product design. Exponent is a business that we have admired from the sidelines for a while, and we finally saw an opportunity to initiate a position at an attractive price due to a rare pause in annual growth, which we believe to be temporary.
Exponent has a strong competitive position. The company has been around for over 50 years and has developed a well-known brand; it is the go-to consultant in the engineering & scientific space. Additionally, Exponent has a unique combination of scale and premium service orientation. The company has more than 1,000 consulting staff (including 740 doctoral-level professionals) across 90 technical disciplines in over 30 offices around the globe. We estimate that even the biggest competitor is only 15% to 20% of Exponent’s size. No competitors can match the capabilities that Exponent brings to the table, especially as it relates to multi-disciplinary and highly complex matters…” (Click here to read the full text)
A chemical engineer studying a lab sample of a food product for safety regulations.
Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 21 hedge fund portfolios held Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) at the end of the first quarter which was 19 in the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2024, Exponent, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:EXPO) total revenues increased by 3.3% to reach $144.9 million.
In another article, we discussed Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) and shared Conestoga Capital Advisors’ views on the company. 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.
