Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund experienced an excellent quarter to end another successful year. The fund increased 11.7% (Institutional Shares) in the fourth quarter compared to a 7.1% gain for the Russell 1000 Growth Index and a 2.4% increase for the S&P 500 Index. For the full year, the fund returned 37.8% compared to 33.4% and 25.0% gains for the indexes. 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 Fifth Avenue Growth Fund emphasized stocks such as Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN). Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) develops software for the software development lifecycle. The one-month return of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) was -29.68%, and its shares lost 30.82% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 24, 2025, Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) stock closed at $93.96 per share with a market capitalization of $9.978 billion.
Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund stated the following regarding Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“We also increased several of our other existing positions including the next-generation sequencing platform Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) – as we believe the company remains well positioned to benefit from the growing adoption of DNA sequencing as still less than 1% of people had their DNA sequenced. We also believe that as the adoption of the most recent technology matures over the next several years, growth rates which are currently masked (due to the lower price of the new technology), will become more evident.”
A research facility with medical professionals surrounded by diagnostic equipment.
Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 61 hedge fund portfolios held Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 54 in the third quarter. Illumina, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:ILMN) fourth-quarter revenue reached $1.1 billion, surpassing expectations. While we acknowledge the potential of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) 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 Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) and shared the list of top AI stocks buzzing on latest news. 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.