Oakmark Funds, advised by Harris Associates, released its “Oakmark Global Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned -3.01% in the quarter compared to a 2.63% return for the MSCI World Index (net). The fund generated a 9.14% return since its inception compared to the index’s 6.23% return over the same period. The largest contributors at the sector level were communication services and financials, while the largest detractors were industrials and health care. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2024.
Oakmark Global Fund highlighted stocks like Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) in the Q2 2024 investor letter. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) manufactures and distributes various equipment. The one-month return of Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) was -3.35%, and its shares lost 11.89% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 12, 2024, Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) stock closed at $365.33 per share with a market capitalization of $100.674 billion.
Oakmark Global Fund stated the following regarding Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) is a leading manufacturer of agricultural equipment with dominant market share positions in North America and Brazil. Despite its brand strength, technological capabilities and distribution advantages, the company’s stock price has recently come under pressure due to investor fears of a trough in the current agriculture business cycle. Longer term, however, world population and food demand are expected to increase annually with land and labor devoted to agriculture set to decline each year. As a technological leader, we believe Deere is well-positioned to benefit from this dynamic as farms will need to become more productive. We also like that the company’s management team has a strong track record of growing the business organically through cycles, continuously improving returns on invested capital and returning capital to shareholders. We believe Deere is worth about the same P/E as high-quality industrials, so we were excited to buy it at roughly two-thirds that level.”
A combine harvesting crops, showing the capabilities of the company’s agriculture equipment.
Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 48 hedge fund portfolios held Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) at the end of the first quarter which was 54 in the previous quarter. Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) reported net income of $2.37 billion in the fiscal second quarter of 2024, or $8.53 per diluted share. While we acknowledge the potential of Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) 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 Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) and shared the list of largest publicly traded industrial companies in the US. 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.
