Ariel Investments, an investment management firm, published its fourth-quarter 2020 ‘Ariel Fund’, ‘Ariel Appreciation Fund’, ‘Ariel Focus Fund’, ‘Ariel International Fund’, and ‘Ariel Global Fund’ Investor Letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. In the fourth quarter of 2020, a return of 31.56% was recorded by Ariel fund, 23.57% by Ariel Appreciation Fund, 21.62% by Ariel Focus Fund, 8.26% by Ariel International Fund, and 9.80% return by Ariel Global Fund. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.
Ariel Investments, in their Q4 2020 investor letter, emphasized their ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAC) position. ViacomCBS Inc. is a New York-based international mass media company. It currently has a $48.9 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, VIAC delivered an impressive 112.61% return, massively extending its 12-month gains to 285.87%. As of March 8, 2021, the stock closed at $83.66 per share.
Here is what Ariel Investments has to say about ViacomCBS Inc. in their Q4 2020 investor letter:
“ViacomCBS Inc. saw a sharp revenue drop in response to the COVID-19 lockdown. Advertisers cut television spending; sporting events like the Masters and NCAA Final Four were cancelled; and highly anticipated Paramount movies like Top Gun: Maverick were postponed. At the peak of pessimism, VIAC’s stock traded at a remarkable price/earnings ratio of 2.0x in March. The company became our largest holding during the quarter as its shares returned +34%. After a strong run, we have trimmed our position modestly but still believe its shares are undervalued given its library and a growing direct-toconsumer channel rebranded as Paramount+.”
Our calculations show that ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAC) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, ViacomCBS Inc. was in 44 hedge fund portfolios. VIAC delivered a stunning 116.64% return in the past 3 months.
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.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
