Baron Funds, an investment management firm, released its “Baron Durable Advantage Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter, a copy of which can be downloaded here. The fund advanced 13.9% (Institutional Shares) in the fourth quarter compared to an 11.7% return for the Fund’s benchmark, the S&P 500 Index. The fund gained 45.5% for the full year 2023, compared to the 26.3% gain for the Benchmark. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron Durable Advantage Fund featured stocks like LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) in the fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. Based in San Diego, California, LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) is an integrated platform provider of brokerage and investment advisory services. On March 4, 2024, LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) stock closed at $267.70 per share. One-month return of LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) was 10.85%, and its shares gained 5.38% of their value over the last 52 weeks. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) has a market capitalization of $19.931 billion.
Baron Durable Advantage Fund stated the following regarding LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) is the largest independent broker-dealer in the U.S. Shares declined 4.1% in the quarter as expectations for the number of interest rate cuts in 2024 increased (shares still finished the year up 12.7%). LPL invests idle client cash in both floating as well as fixed rate contracts. Rate cuts could reduce LPL’s cash revenues and earnings from its floating rate contracts. LPL’s interest rate exposure has also made it a favored stock for short-term traders to gain exposure to higher interest rates. We believe some of the stock weakness was a result of these investors reducing their stake as rates look set to fall. On a long-term basis, we believe that even under conservative assumptions for rates, the stock offers a positively skewed risk/reward profile. Moreover, LPL’s execution continues to be strong as it gains share among advisors and wins large enterprise deals. We therefore remain shareholders and have been adding to our position.”
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LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. At the end of the fourth quarter, LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) was held by 41 hedge fund portfolios, down from 49 in the previous quarter, according to our database.
We discussed LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LPLA) in another article and shared the list of best small-cap growth stocks to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2023 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.
