Ariel Investments, an investment management company, released its “Ariel Global Fund” second-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the Ariel Global fund fell -3.12% underperforming the +2.87% return of its primary benchmark, the MSCI ACWI Index, and -0.59% return of its secondary benchmark, the MSCI ACWI Value Index. Ariel follows a non-consensus approach to identify undervalued, out-of-favor franchises that are misunderstood and mispriced. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Ariel Global Fund highlighted stocks like KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) is a Korea-based financial company that provides banking and related financial services to consumers and corporations. The one-month return of KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) was 1.18%, and its shares gained 64.70% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 27, 2024, KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) stock closed at $65.98 per share with a market capitalization of $25.032 billion.
Ariel Global Fund stated the following regarding KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Additionally, Korea’s largest financial company in terms of assets and customer base, KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB), increased in the quarter following an earnings beat, highlighted by solid profitability, stable loan growth and net interest margin expansion. Given KB Financial’s capital structure and solid provisioning practices, we believe it is well-positioned to deliver on its enhanced shareholder return policy, inclusive of dividends, buybacks and subsequent share cancellations. Despite the recent outperformance, we still see significant upside in the name as it is trading at 0.5x price-to-book and generates return-on-equity in line with its cost-of-equity.”
A professional financial analyst studying data on a computer, illustrating the company’s index investment decisions.
KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 14 hedge fund portfolios held KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) at the end of the second quarter which was 18 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) 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 KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) and shared Baron Funds’ views on the company. Ariel Global Fund added KB Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:KB) to its portfolio during the first quarter of 2024. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
