Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Select Strategy” first-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The portfolio appreciated double digits in Q1 outperforming the Russell 3000 Index. The strategy returned 12.66% gross of fees and 12.43% net of fees vs 10.02% for the index. The relative performance of the portfolio concentrated on discretionary, financials, and consumer staples holdings however industrials and healthcare holdings, while positive on an absolute basis, trailed benchmark peers, posing a relative headwind in Q1. Relative performance was also negatively impacted by lack of exposure to the communication services sector. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2024.
Diamond Hill Select Strategy highlighted stocks like Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is a biopharmaceutical company. The one-month return of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) was -1.09%, and its shares lost 30.31% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On June 10, 2024, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) stock closed at $28.07 per share with a market capitalization of $159.061 billion.
Diamond Hill Select Strategy stated the following regarding Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“Though valuations have increased, we continue identifying high-quality companies we believe the market is overlooking. Thus, we initiated new positions in Q1: Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE). Biopharmaceutical company Pfizer is a leading global pharmaceuticals company that benefited during the pandemic from COVID vaccine and treatment sales, which provided significant excess earnings above the company’s normalized earnings power. Although the resulting influx of incremental cash allowed Pfizer to complete several acquisitions, the company has struggled to return to its pre-pandemic profitability as COVID-related sales have declined. In late 2023, Pfizer started focusing on cost-cutting and aiming to increase its operating margin significantly over the next few years. The base (non-COVID-related) business continues performing well, and given the outlook from here, we took advantage of what we consider an attractive, depressed valuation to initiate a position during the quarter.”
A medical technician wearing protective gloves and a mask mixing a biopharmaceutical solution.
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 77 hedge fund portfolios held Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) at the end of the first quarter which was 79 in the previous quarter. Pfizer Inc.’s (NYSE:PFE) total revenue for the quarter was $14.9 billion, 19% operational decline from the same period last year. While we acknowledge the potential of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) 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 Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and shared the list of best gene therapy stocks to buy. 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.
