Bretton Capital Management, an investment management company, released “Bretton Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The market is experiencing a period of high returns, with two consecutive years of around 25% returns and 15 years of mid-teens returns, prompting investors to be cautious. The average stock market return is around 9-10% per year, historically, based on corporate earnings growth and dividends and buybacks. The 20 companies the fund owns are well-positioned and expected to perform well. Against this backdrop, in the fourth quarter, the fund returned -0.98% compared to 2.41% return for the S&P 500. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Bretton Fund emphasized stocks such as The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR). The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) is an insurance holding company that operates Personal Lines, Commercial Lines, and Property segments. The one-month return of The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) was 7.76%, and its shares gained 38.88% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 14, 2025, The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) stock closed at $262.60 per share with a market capitalization of $153.83 billion.
Bretton Fund stated the following regarding The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“We believe The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) is, by far, the savviest auto insurer out there. They’re able to tweak their policies in response to industry changes and shifting driver behavior faster than the competition. When it recognized insurance rates were too low for the increasing number of crashes and higher repair costs post-pandemic, it was one of the first to raise rates significantly, making it an outlier and losing customers. It took its foot off the gas pedal of its powerful marketing machine; Flo was grounded for a bit. But now that industry rates have caught up, Progressive’s prices are once again low by comparison, and they’ve dialed the marketing back up. It grew policies by 18% last year and earnings per share by 71%, while the stock returned 51%.”
A team of accountants in a boardroom, discussing strategic moves of an insurance company.
The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 95 hedge fund portfolios held The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) at the end of the third quarter which was 89 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) 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 The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) and shared the list of best momentum stocks to buy according to hedge funds. 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.