Carillon Tower Advisers, an investment management company, released its “Carillon Eagle Small Cap Growth Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Small-cap stocks were unable to sustain the positive gains made in the first quarter and finished the second quarter in negative territory. Among the style indexes, the Russell 2000® Growth Index outperformed the Russell 2000® Value Index by a modest margin, with a decrease of 2.92% compared to a decrease of 3.75%. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Carillon Eagle Small Cap Growth Fund highlighted stocks like Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The one-month return of Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) was 11.91%, and its shares gained 342.87% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 28, 2024, Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) stock closed at $61.16 per share with a market capitalization of $6.776 billion.
Carillon Eagle Small Cap Growth Fund stated the following regarding Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) develops drugs for patients with metabolic disorders. Its main drug, VK2735, had very strong results in an initial pilot study in patients with diabetes. However, a slew of competitors has begun entering the glucagon-like peptide 1 agonist (GLP-1) weight loss market, and investors fear that Viking’s position as best in class will be supplanted by other companies. This is the main reason for the stock’s decline.”
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Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 50 hedge fund portfolios held Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) at the end of the second quarter which was 52 in the previous quarter. In Q2 2024, Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) reported a net loss of $22.3 million, or $0.20 per share, compared to a net loss of $19.2 million, or $0.19 per share in Q2 2023. While we acknowledge the potential of Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) 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 Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) and shared Oppenheimer’s favorite stocks for the next 12 months and the top stock picks. 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.
