Middle Coast Investing, an investment advisor firm, released its third-quarter investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. It was a frustrating quarter for the firm. The portfolio appreciated in the quarter but lagged the main indices and closer benchmarks. The portfolio’s price to earnings for the trailing 12 months (TTM) was 19.7. Cash and equivalents accounted for 17.1% of the portfolio at the end of the quarter, with an estimated average yield of 3%. This compares to 13.4% of the portfolio and a 3.9% yield at the end of Q2. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Middle Coast Investing highlighted stocks like Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) owns and operates fast casual restaurants. The one-month return of Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) was 3.65%, and its shares lost 19.81% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 7, 2024, Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) stock closed at $12.35 per share with a market capitalization of $828.248 million.
Middle Coast Investing stated the following regarding Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“In personal accounts I made a pair trade, i.e. buying shares of one company and selling shares short of a related company, in Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) (long) and Kura Sushi (KRUS) (short). Both are restaurant chains who have come to the markets in the last few years; Portillo’s is reasonably valued to its prospects, Kura Sushi quite expensively valued. Restaurants are tough, and I wasn’t convinced about Portillo’s, so I closed this trade with a gain on both sides. I later re-shorted Kura Sushi without pairing it with Portillo’s, and am overall down marginally at the end of the quarter.”
A customer biting into a freshly prepared char-grilled burger, with crinkle-cut French fries and a chopped salad in the background.
Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 16 hedge fund portfolios held Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) at the end of the second quarter which was 21 in the previous quarter. Portillo’s Inc.’s (NASDAQ:PTLO) second quarter revenue grew 7.5% year-over-year to $181.9 million. While we acknowledge the potential of Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) 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 Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) and shared the list of Engaged Capital’s top Holdings. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.