Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Growth Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund appreciated 5.02% (Institutional Shares) in 2024, trailing the Russell 2000 Growth Index’s (the Benchmark) 15.15% return. Approximately 25% of the fund’s underperformance was attributed to short-term cyclical headwinds and temporary growth investments, while the remaining underperformance was due to a focus on high-quality compounding growth businesses. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Baron Growth Fund emphasized stocks such as FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) in the Q4 2024 investor letter. FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) is a financial data company, that provides integrated financial information and analytical applications. The one-month return of FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) was 0.39%, and its shares gained 1.59% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 19, 2025, FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) stock closed at $466.18 per share with a market capitalization of $17.729 billion.
Baron Growth Fund stated the following regarding FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Shares of FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS), a leading provider of investment management tools, contributed to performance. The company held an upbeat Investor Day in November and expressed optimism on its fiscal first quarter of 2025 earnings call in December regarding prospects for the second half of fiscal 2025. While we still see some near-term uncertainty, we retain long-term conviction in FactSet due to the large addressable market, consistent execution on both new product development and financial results, and robust free cash flow generation.”
An investment banker consulting with a customer on their portfolio in a professional setting.
FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 36 hedge fund portfolios held FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 26 in the previous quarter. In the fiscal first quarter of 2025, FactSet Research Systems Inc.’s (NYSE:FDS) GAAP revenue increased 4.9% to $569 million. While we acknowledge the potential of FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) 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 FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) and shared the list of lowest-scoring stocks in earnings revisions, P/E ratios, EPS growth, and other indicators according to investment bank UBS. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
READ NEXT: Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks and A New Dawn Is Coming to US Stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.