Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Small Cap Fund” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The third quarter saw strength in small cap stocks, particularly in July when the return on the Russell 2000 Index was 10.2%. In the quarter, its Investor Class fund ARTSX returned 9.02%, Advisor Class fund APDSX posted a return of 9.04%, and Institutional Class fund APHSX returned 9.06%, compared to a return of 8.41% for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. Outperformance of the fund in the quarter was driven by positive security selection within health care and consumer discretionary sectors. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to find out its best picks for 2024.
Artisan Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Incorporated in 2006, Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) is a US-based diagnostics company. The one-month return of Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) was 17.47%, and its shares gained 52.93% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On December 11, 2024, Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) stock closed at $43.51 per share with a market capitalization of $3.372 billion.
Artisan Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Among our top Q3 contributors were Guidewire, Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) and SharkNinja. After struggling in the early part of this year, Veracyte shares have rebounded in recent months. The company specializes in improving diagnostic accuracy by combining RNA sequencing, machine learning and the company’s proprietary “field of injury” technology. We believe Veracyte has the potential to build an annuity-like revenue stream in health care. The company is harvesting profits from its existing products and investing in new genetic tests to detect diseases, including prostate and thyroid cancer. We believe its new tests could reduce the number of surgeries performed on patients with indeterminate results from other types of testing and save the health care system unnecessary overtreatment costs. Shares rallied after the company reported strong earnings results, including 23% growth in test volumes, 27% revenue growth and 21% EBITDA margins.”
A scientist in a laboratory coat looking at a DNA sequence on a monitor, symbolizing the power of genomic sequencing.
Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 32 hedge fund portfolios held Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) at the end of the third quarter which was 21 in the previous quarter. Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) generated revenue of $115.9 million in the third quarter, growing 29% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) 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 Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) and shared Baron Discovery Fund’s views on the company. Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) detracted from the performance of Artisan Small Cap Fund in the previous quarter due to profitability concerns. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.