Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund” first quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund increased 12.6% (Institutional Shares) in the first quarter compared to an 11.4% gain for the Russell 1000 Growth Index and a 10.6% increase for the S&P 500 Index. Despite higher interest rates, the US economy continues to surpass expectations. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund highlighted stocks like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a multinational software company that develops and supports software, services, devices, and solutions. The one-month return of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was 6.94%, and its shares gained 29.22% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 24, 2024, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock closed at $430.16 per share with a market capitalization of $3.197 trillion
Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund stated the following regarding Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“Our second largest purchase during the quarter was the software platform, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), which we continued to add to, after initiating a position in the fourth quarter of 2023. Microsoft continues to report strong quarterly results, with revenue growth of 16% year-over-year in constant currency thanks to better-than-expected demand in its intelligent cloud segment, which saw revenue growth of 19% year-over-year, driven by Azure growth of 28% with AI contributing 6pts to growth compared with 3pts in the prior quarter. While the adoption of GenAI remains in its early stages, Microsoft has disclosed positive initial data points with 53,000 Azure AI customers as of its December quarter up from 18,000 in the prior quarter, 1.3 million paid GitHub Copilot subscribers (up 30% sequentially) and more than 230,000 organizations who have used AI capabilities in the power platform (up 80% sequentially). Management also noted that large cloud optimizations that started a year or so ago have largely finished. Profitability also continues to be strong with 44% non-GAAP operating margins, which was 120bps better than expected.”
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It was a record quarter for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), driven by continued strength in the Microsoft Cloud. The company reported $61.9 billion in revenues, up 17%; and earnings per share was $2.94, up 20% in the quarter.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in first position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 293 hedge fund portfolios held Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) at the end of the first quarter which was 302 in the previous quarter.
In another article, we discussed Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and shared the list of best AI stocks to buy for 2024 according to billionaire David Tepper. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as Microsoft but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
