Carillon Tower Advisers, an investment management company, released its “Carillon Eagle Growth & Income Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The S&P 500 Index experienced 4.3% gains during the second quarter, but the benchmark index’s 15.3% gain at the end of the first half was remarkable. The S&P 500 Index’s record highs in the first half of the year were driven by the extraordinary performance of technology stocks, which were propelled by the artificial intelligence (AI) trend and advancements toward the point at which the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) could begin lowering interest rates. However, there was still a problem with market breadth, with the eight top-performing equities accounting for about 70% of all returns. The strongest sectors by far were communication services and information technology, with the majority of other sectors trading more or less flat. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2024.
Carillon Eagle Growth & Income Fund highlighted stocks like Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) is a US-based general merchandise retailer. The one-month return of Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) was 10.38%, and its shares gained 22.39% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 30, 2024, Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) stock closed at $153.62 per share with a market capitalization of $70.769 billion.
Carillon Eagle Growth & Income Fund stated the following regarding Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Target Corporation’s (NYSE:TGT) sales continue to feel the consumer softness in discretionary goods. In addition, while margins are recovering, they are not up to expectations. Encouragingly, sales are sequentially increasing and comparable sales are expected to get easier as Target enters the back half of the year.”
A woman purchasing groceries at a Target store, with a cart full of products.
Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 52 hedge fund portfolios held Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) at the end of the second quarter which was 67 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) 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 Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) and shared the list of the best dividend stocks for steady growth. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.