Columbia Acorn Fund, distributed by Columbia Management Investment Distributors, released its third-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the quarter, the fund returned 9.15% while the benchmark, the Russell 2500 Growth Index, returned 6.99%. A strong market rally occurred throughout the quarter, and the Columbia Acorn Fund beat its benchmark due to positive stock selection. With recoveries for smaller caps and several cyclical stocks, the third quarter witnessed a return to animal spirits following the previous quarter’s more risk-averse environment. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings for its best picks for 2024.
Columbia Acorn Fund highlighted stocks like Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) offers integrated solutions and services in the defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure markets. The one-month return of Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) was 4.51%, and its shares gained 78.65% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On November 8, 2024, Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) stock closed at $112.69 per share with a market capitalization of $11.967 billion.
Columbia Acorn Fund stated the following regarding Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) is a standout in the defense and infrastructure space, with a strong focus on cybersecurity, intelligence, and critical infrastructure protection. With a 75-year history, Parsons has built an increasingly differentiated high-end talent base in the control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance spaces as well as in the cyber domain, which complements its legacy positions in missile defense and traditional federal services. Management has executed superbly in pivoting the business away from lower margin, less predictable construction projects and gearing towards higher margin, higher growth areas. It is also the leading player in the Middle East market (20% of revenues) with an enormous runway for infrastructure projects in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE. Parsons remains very well-positioned to benefit from tailwinds in cyber, artificial intelligence (AI) and environmental remediation.”
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Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 36 hedge fund portfolios held Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) at the end of the second quarter which was 26 in the previous quarter. In the third quarter, Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) generated revenue of $1.8 billion, a 28% increase from Q3 2023. While we acknowledge the potential of Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) 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 Parsons Corporation (NYSE:PSN) and shared AI news investors probably missed. 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.