Fred Alger Management, an investment management company, released its “Alger Spectra Fund” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US equities posted positive results in the third quarter with the S&P 500 Index rising 5.89%. Against this backdrop, the fund’s Class A shares underperformed the Russell 3000 Growth Index in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Alger Spectra Fund highlighted stocks like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the third 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 -2.37%, and its shares gained 9.74% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On November 20, 2024, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock closed at $415.49 per share with a market capitalization of $3.089 trillion.
Alger Spectra Fund stated the following regarding Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a beneficiary of corporate America’s transformative digitization. The company operates through three segments: Productivity and Business Processes (Office, LinkedIn, and Dynamics), Intelligent Cloud (Server Products and Cloud Services, Azure, and Enterprise Services), and More Personal Computing (Windows, Devices, Gaming, and Search). During the quarter, shares detracted from performance after Microsoft reported weaker-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter revenue growth in its Azure cloud segment. Additionally, management’s fiscal first[1]quarter 2025 Azure revenue guidance came in slightly below estimates. Despite this shortfall, management highlighted that AI contributed 7% to cloud growth, up from 6% last quarter and 3% a year ago. We continue to believe that Microsoft is well-positioned to maintain a leadership role in AI, given its innovative approach and significant growth potential.”
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in second position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 279 hedge fund portfolios held Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) at the end of the third quarter which was 279 in the previous quarter. In the September quarter, Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) revenue was $65.6 billion, up 16% year-over-year and earnings per share was $3.30, representing a 10% increase compared to prior year’s quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) 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 Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and shared the list of trending AI stocks on latest ratings and news. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.