Qualivian Investment Partners, an investment management firm, published its second-quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. From inception (December 14, 2017) to the end of Q2 2021, the fund has returned 102.8% and 98.5% on a gross and net basis respectively, outperforming the S&P 500 Total Return index by 30.4% and 26.1%, respectively. You can take a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their top bets for 2021.
In the Q2 2021 investor letter of Qualivian Investment Partners, the fund mentioned Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) and discussed its stance on the firm. Mastercard Incorporated is a Purchase, Harrison, New York-based financial services company with a $347.5 billion market capitalization. MA delivered a -1.31% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 5.82%. The stock closed at $351.04 per share on September 8, 2021.
Here is what Qualivian Investment Partners has to say about Mastercard Incorporated in its Q2 2021 investor letter:
“Mastercard: Q2 revenue and EPS beat consensus estimates by 3.7% and 12% respectively. Operating margins also beat consensus by +240 bps. Gross domestic volume growth of +38.3% (+32.8% in constant currency) was buttressed by continued e-commerce strength and better in-store performance, while purchase volumes grew 41.8% (35.5% in constant currency). Cross border performance was strong, but durability remains uncertain given uncertainty arising from the Delta variant and its impact on travel and tourism. We believe Mastercard has a robust runway for growth given further travel recovery, new/existing partnerships, traction in digital payments, and ongoing economic recovery.”
Valeri Potapova / Shutterstock.com
Based on our calculations, Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) ranks 6th in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. MA was in 156 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first half of 2021, compared to 151 funds in the previous quarter. Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) delivered a 15.22% return in the past 3 months.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
