Polen Capital, an investment management company, released its “Polen U.S. SMID Company Growth Strategy” fourth-quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The portfolio returned 14.98% gross and 14.65 % net of fees in the fourth quarter compared to a 12.59% return for the Russell 2500 Growth Index. The portfolio returned 29.39% gross and 28.05% net for the full year, compared to 18.93% return for the index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Polen U.S. SMID Company Growth Strategy featured stocks such as MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) in the fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in New York, MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) is an electronic trading platform provider. On February 22, 2024, MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) stock closed at $213.55 per share. One-month return of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) was -22.77%, and its shares lost 38.39% of their value over the last 52 weeks. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) has a market capitalization of $8.095 billion.
Polen U.S. SMID Company Growth Strategy stated the following regarding MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) operates one of the leading electronic trading platforms for fixed income securities, with over 2,000 institutional investors and broker-dealers using their trading solutions. In our opinion, the company only has 2-3 legitimate global e-trading competitors in a high barrier-to-entry market. Over the past five years, the share price has been roughly flat as the previously elevated multiple compressed due to the rollout of new competitive protocols that cut into their monopoly position in U.S. credit as well as due to a shift in macro conditions (i.e., rising rates impact on fixed income). We believe the shares now trade at a far more reasonable multiple, and the company has invested heavily in new technology, product categories, and geographies to level with their capable competitors. As the company begins to lap these near-term difficult macro conditions, we believe EPS can potentially compound at a mid-teens rate (or higher) as this outstanding, highly cash-generative business returns to form.”
A trader in a busy trading room, surrounded by real-time market data and automated execution services.
MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. At the end of the fourth quarter, MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) was held by 27 hedge fund portfolios, down from 29 in the previous quarter, according to our database.
We discussed MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) in another article and shared the list of top stock picks of GuardCap Asset Management, In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2023 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.
