Baron Asset Fund recently published its first-quarter commentary – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the first quarter of 2021, the Baron Asset Fund returned -1.03% (institutional shares). In comparison, the benchmark S&P 500 Index was up 6.17%, while the Russell Midcap Growth Index was down 0.57%. You should check out Baron Asset Fund’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of 2021.
In the Q1 2021 Investor Letter, the fund highlighted a few stocks and Verisk Analytics Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) is one of them. Verisk Analytics Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) is a data analytics and risk assessment firm. In the last three months, Verisk Analytics Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) stock lost 0.6% and on April 26th it had a closing price of $186.47. Here is what the fund said:
“Shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc., a leading data and analytics vendor, detracted from performance after the company reported fourth quarter earnings that came in slightly below Street expectations. Verisk’s core insurance segment delivered strong results, but pandemic-related weakness impacted its smaller Energy and Financial Services segments. We remain positive about the competitive positioning, long-term growth, margin expansion, and capital deployment prospects for the business.”
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In Q4 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Verisk Analytics Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) stock decreased by about 20% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers don’t believe in VRSK’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that Verisk Analytics Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) isn’t ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best innovative stocks to buy to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website:
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
