Sands Capital, an investment management company, released its “Sands Capital Select Growth Fund” Q4 2024 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. Select Growth primarily targets U.S. companies that are leading the way in crucial areas of positive structural transformation within the economy. The fund returned 8.8% (net) in the fourth quarter compared to 7.1% return for the benchmark, the Russell 1000 Growth Index. The fund returned 24.3% over the one year period compared to 33.4% return for the Index. You can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to know more about its best picks for 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Sands Capital Select Growth Fund emphasized stocks such as Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON). Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) manufacturers conducted energy devices (CEDs) under the TASER brand. The one-month return Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) was -0.44%, and its shares gained 70.01% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 31, 2025, Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) stock closed at $525.95 per share with a market capitalization of $40.846 billion.
Sands Capital Select Growth Fund stated the following regarding Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) is a leading provider of public-safety technology, including body cameras, software, and the TASER electroshock device. Axon’s mission is to “protect life, capture truth, and accelerate justice.” The company is the sole manufacturer of the TASER and is the world’s leading provider of body cameras by market share. Demand for Axon’s safety solutions is both secular and countercyclical, in our view. The company benefits from the secular shift toward safer and more accountable policing, and demand is likely to be durable in recessionary periods, when crime tends to rise and governments tend to increase spending. While its hardware and software can be purchased separately, they are increasingly sold as a bundle, resulting in highly visible and recurring revenue with long-duration contracts. This bundled ecosystem works together to automate, record, and store tamperproof evidence in the cloud. The bundle also benefits from positive flywheel effects because Axon uses anonymized usage data to drive hardware, software, and training improvements, ultimately resulting in an attractive and effective service for users. Over the next decade, we expect hardware to become a smaller part of Axon’s overall business, with the higher margin software component becoming a more meaningful revenue driver.”
A technician in a white coat testing an in-car system on a modern military vehicle.
Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 64 hedge fund portfolios held Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 46 in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, Axon Enterprise, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AXON) revenue grew 34% year-over-year to $575 million. While we acknowledge the potential of Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) 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.
We covered Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) in another article, where we shared the list of stocks to trade without tariffs and interest rate fears. 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.