Conestoga Capital Advisors, an asset management company, released its “SMid Cap Strategy” fourth-quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The strategy outperformed the Russell 2500 Growth Index in the fourth quarter with a total return of 13.26% net-of-fess versus the benchmark return of 12.59%. The market had significant volatility throughout the quarter, as the Index experienced a decline of approximately -8% from the start of the period until October 27th. However, by year’s conclusion, stocks had rallied by over 22%. Both during the downturn and the recovery, the SMid Cap strategy was able to outperform despite the significant fluctuations in benchmark returns. For the full year 2023, the Smid Cap Composite’s return of 26.61% outperformed the benchmark’s gain of 18.93%. Strong stock selection and positive sector allocation effects were cited as the main causes of the excess returns. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Conestoga Capital Advisors SMid Cap Strategy featured stocks such as MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) in the fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) manufactures and distributes safety products and technology solutions. On February 16, 2024, MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) stock closed at $178.45 per share. One-month return of MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) was 9.55%, and its shares gained 27.28% of their value over the last 52 weeks. MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) has a market capitalization of $7.015 billion.
Conestoga Capital Advisors SMid Cap Strategy stated the following regarding MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA): MSA develops, manufactures, and sells products that enable a safe and healthy work environment such as portable/fixed gas detection systems, firefighter helmets and protective apparel, and industrial head protection. MSA is a market leader in all its segments, is an innovator in the space and has broad product distribution. We view MSA as a defensive name with accelerating growth being driven by market share gains in firefighter protection as well as improving demand in portable/fixed gas detection systems.”
A miner in a safety helmet working in an underground tunnel.
MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. At the end of the fourth quarter, MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) was held by 24 hedge fund portfolios, up from 18 in the previous quarter, according to our database.
We discussed MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) in another article and shared the list of best video surveillance and private security stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2023 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.
