Investment management company Laughing Water Capital released its second quarter investor letter 2022, a copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund returned -19.4%, which brings the year-to-date return to -29.5%. The letter discussed the reasons for the underperformance of its portfolios. S&P 500 & Russell 2000 also underperformed in the second quarter and returned -16.1% and -17.2%, respectively. You can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to see its best picks in 2022.
In the Q2 2022 investor letter, Laughing Water Capital analyzed the current events in the market and pointed out how they affected its portfolios. The fund discussed the stocks like TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT). TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT) is a technology-driven company headquartered in Hamden, Connecticut, and has a market capitalization of $44.595 million. The stock of TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT) closed at $4.50 per share on July 29, 2022. TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT) had a return of 12.50% for the past month, and its 12-month return dropped to -72.43%.
Here is what Laughing Water Capital specifically said about TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT):
“TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT), our slot machine printer business that is also developing back of house restaurant and convenience store software, has fallen victim to supply chain issues that have slowed its growth. Quite simply, they have been unable to meet customer demand. This is of course frustrating, and it does come with balance sheet implications, but it is not as if this unmet demand is missed opportunity. Rather, it is delayed opportunity because competitors have not been able to meet demand either. In fact, this delayed opportunity is likely to come with pricing power. My research suggests that on the slot machine printer side – a duopoly market – TACT’s main competitor has been telling customers that it could be 12-18 months before they have product. TACT expects product much sooner, and appears to be in position to decide if they should build relationships with new customers by being accommodative on price, or if they should be a bit more greedy with the expectation that this business may be one time in nature. Regardless, with time the supply chain issues will resolve themselves, and TACT will continue its march forward. It bears mentioning that the decline in TACT’s stock has shrunk the market cap to a level that we normally would not bother with, and it is possible that selling pressure is tied to the small size. At the same time, at present TACT is trading at 3-4x my estimate of the normalized EBITDA of the slot machine business, which you may remember operates in a unique niche with regulatory protection and only one real competitor. This gives no value to the restaurant/C-store business, and in my view selling here for structural reasons would make little sense.”
TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Our records show that 9 hedge fund portfolios held TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT) at the end of the first quarter of 2022 and in the previous quarter. TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT) shares lost -33.73% of their value over the last 3 months.
Please check another article on TransAct Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TACT), released in April and where we shared Laughing Water Capital’s views about the company in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2022 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.