Ariel Investments, an investment management company, released its “Ariel Global Fund” fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In 2024, global markets surpassed expectations, driven by U.S. tech companies and AI-themed stocks. However, Eurozone challenges, uncertainty over interest rates, and a strengthening U.S. dollar impacted MSCI ACWI and EAFE Indices. Against this backdrop, the Ariel Global fund traded -3.66% lower compared to the -0.99% return of its primary benchmark, the MSCI ACWI Index, and -4.71% return of its secondary benchmark, the MSCI ACWI Value Index. The fund returned +7.14% over the trailing one-year period compared to +17.49% and +10.76% returns for the indexes. Ariel follows a non-consensus approach to identify undervalued, out-of-favor franchises that are misunderstood and mispriced. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Ariel Global Fund emphasized stocks such as Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS). Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) is a financial services provider. The one-month return of Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) was 8.05%, and its shares gained 81.54% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 3, 2025, Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) stock closed at $15.83 per share with a market capitalization of $56.865 billion.
Ariel Global Fund stated the following regarding Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“We bought global bank and financial services provider, Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS). We expect shares to benefit from a recovery in global capital markets and net interest income (NII) growth driven by macroeconomic hedging and asset flows. The bank is also planning to expand its investment banking advisory business. Moreover, its U.S. credit card business presents opportunities for either a potential sale or a quicker earnings recovery. Taken together, we see a reasonable path for Barclays to pursue its return targets, which include the distribution of £3 billion and £10 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases between 2024 and 2026 and achieving a return on tangible common equity of about 12%.”
An investor looking at a stock chart, representing the bank’s securities dealing.
Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 25 hedge fund portfolios held Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 21 in the third quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) 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 Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) and shared the list of best UK growth 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.