Meridian Funds, managed by ArrowMark Partners, released its “Meridian Contrarian Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. During the quarter, the significant market influences were the U.S. election results, inflation, and the direction of interest rates. Against this backdrop, the fund returned 1.70% (net) during the quarter outperforming the 0.62% returns of the Russell 2500 Index and -0.26% returns of the secondary benchmark the Russell 2500 Value Index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Meridian Contrarian Fund emphasized stocks such as Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM). Headquartered in Paris, France, Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) design, manufacture, and sale of rolled and extruded aluminum products. The one-month return of Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) was 1.47%, and its shares lost 47.12% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 20, 2025, Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) stock closed at $10.36 per share with a market capitalization of $1.515 billion.
Meridian Contrarian Fund stated the following regarding Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) manufactures finished aluminum products for packaging, aerospace, and automotive applications. Aligned as a pass-through aluminum price business, Constellium is growing volume in high-value specialty aerospace and automotive light-weighting applications. The company’s earnings were depressed in 2023 as several exogenous shocks to their customers—especially in aerospace OEMs— hurt volume growth and profitability, providing an attractive investment opportunity. While we continue to monitor macro demand drivers, the company has several internal drivers of earnings recovery in place and a historically low valuation for a high-value supplier. Although the stock was temporarily affected by a series of unrelated challenges in the latter half of 2024, we added to our position during the quarter, anticipating stronger performance as internal earnings drivers and stock buybacks, the first in the company’s history, begin to take hold in 2025.”
A closeup of a freshly rolled aluminum product being produced in a factory.
Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 35 hedge fund portfolios held Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 34 in the third quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) 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 Constellium SE (NYSE:CSTM) and shared the list of best aluminum and aluminum mining 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.