Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Small Cap Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US stocks concluded a strong year with strong gains in Q4. In Q4, the portfolio’s performance was flat and narrowly trailed the Russell 2000® Growth Index. In 2024, the portfolio produced a robust absolute return that was in line with the Russell 2000® Growth Index but outperformed the Russell 2000 Index. In the quarter, its Investor Class fund ARTSX returned 0.61%, Advisor Class fund APDSX posted a return of 0.66%, and Institutional Class fund APHSX returned 0.67%, compared to a return of 1.70% for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to find out its best picks for 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Artisan Small Cap Fund emphasized stocks such as Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT). Incorporated in 2006, Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) is a diagnostics company. The one-month return of Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) was -23.63%, and its shares gained 41.31% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 7, 2025, Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) stock closed at $32.02 per share with a market capitalization of $2.496 billion.
Artisan Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Among our top Q4 contributors were Astera Labs, Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) and Vita Coco. Veracyte 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 29% revenue growth and 24% 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 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 30 hedge fund portfolios held Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 32 in the third quarter. In Q4 2024, Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:VCYT) reported a revenue of $118.6 million, an increase of 21% from Q4 2023. 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 Artisan Small Cap Fund’s views on the company in the previous quarter. 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.