Baron Discovery Fund recently published its first-quarter commentary – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the first quarter of 2021, the Baron Discovery Fund returned 7.5% (institutional shares). This was 2.59% higher than the Russell 2000 Growth Index, the Fund’s primary benchmark index. You should check out Baron Discovery Fund’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of 2021.
In the Q1 2021 Investor Letter, the fund highlighted a few stocks and Qualys Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) is one of them. Qualys Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) is an IT security company. In the last three months, Qualys Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) stock lost 5% and on May 17th it had a closing price of $97.86. Here is what the fund said:
“We reduced our investment in Qualys, Inc. during the quarter. The company has been a long-time holding and winner for the Fund. Qualys provides sophisticated cybersecurity software that scans endpoints, such as computers, printers, and servers, to check for configuration and other vulnerabilities and to ensure that companies are keeping up with policy compliance requirements. While we have always been a huge fan of the company’s high-margin recurring revenue business model, we are growing increasingly concerned that new products needed for growth are not gaining sufficient traction. Moreover, we were very saddened to hear that due to illness, CEO Phillipe Courteau has left the company. We wish him a speedy recovery and continue to hold a smaller investment in Qualys as we await a reacceleration in growth.”
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In Q3 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Qualys Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) stock decreased by about 30% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers don’t believe in QLYS’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that Qualys Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) isn’t ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.
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 15 best innovative stocks to buy 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 website:
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
