Polen Capital, an investment management company, released its “Polen Global Growth Strategy” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Over the past two years, global equities (2023-2024) showed a historic +45% cumulative return as per the MSCI ACWI Index (the “Index”), emphasizing market unpredictability and the futility of macroeconomic projections. The Strategy returned 2.58% gross (2.27% net) in the quarter compared to the MSCI ACW Index’s -0.99% return. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Polen Global Growth Strategy emphasized stocks such as Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the parent company of Google, offers various platforms and services operating through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The one-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was -13.07%, and its shares gained 8.68% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 18, 2025, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock closed at $162.67 per share with a market capitalization of $1.97 trillion.
Polen Global Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“The top absolute contributors were Amazon, Shopify, and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Beyond these top relative contributors, it’s worth noting Alphabet as a top absolute contributor during the quarter, with much of the strong performance on the heels of the announcement of its new quantum chip, Willow, representing a significant breakthrough in the emerging area of quantum computing.
With Alphabet, we trimmed our position from nearly 8% to 6%, taking advantage of the positive stock price reaction to strong 3Q24 results. While we continue to hold a conviction position in Google and the business continues to perform quite well, there are a myriad of antitrust cases against the company and some uncertainties around the development of Al and the potential for new challenges or competitors. Recognizing the unpredictability of antitrust findings and proposed remedies, we thought it prudent to trim the position back-albeit still an above-average position-from its previously “super-sized weighting.”
A user’s hands typing a search query into a Google Search box, emphasizing the company’s search capabilities.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in 7th position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 174 hedge fund portfolios held Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 160 in the previous quarter. In 2024, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) achieved a revenue growth of 14% compared to 2023, reaching $350 billion. For the fourth quarter, the revenue was $96.5 billion, reflecting a 12% increase in both reported and constant currency. While we acknowledge the potential of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) 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 Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and shared the list of best strong stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.