Oakmark Funds, advised by Harris Associates, released its “Oakmark Equity and Income Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund delivered -2.19% during the quarter compared to the Lipper Balanced Fund Index’s 1.11% return. The equity portfolio returned -3.97% in the quarter, compared to 4.28% for the S&P 500 Index. The fixed-income portfolio returned 0.75%. The fund has allocated its portfolio, 58.0% in equities, 40.7% in fixed income, and 1.3% cash. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2024.
Oakmark Equity and Income Fund highlighted stocks like Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) offers Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology that brings companies and customers together. The one-month return of Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) was 8.27%, and its shares gained 9.50% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 11, 2024, Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) stock closed at $251.12 per share with a market capitalization of $243.335 billion.
Oakmark Equity and Income Fund stated the following regarding Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is a leading technology company that offers a collection of software products aimed at providing businesses with a full front office productivity suite. We believe Salesforce is a wonderful business in the midst of a transformation into a more profitable, shareholder-focused enterprise. Since management announced their renewed focus on operating discipline a couple years ago, Salesforce’s margins have increased substantially. In our view, there is still room to improve from here as management cuts back on their real estate footprint and continues to optimize their sales organization. Recently, concerns about a softening software environment provided us the opportunity to purchase shares at a discount to private market valuations and at an attractive multiple of our estimate of normalized earnings. We believe today’s price is too cheap for a leading software business with significant competitive advantages.”
A customer service team in an office setting using the company’s Customer 360 platform to communicate with customers.
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is in 8th position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 154 hedge fund portfolios held Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) at the end of the first quarter which was 131 in the previous quarter. In the fiscal first quarter of 2025, Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) delivered $9.13 billion in revenue, an increase of 11% year over year in nominal and constant currency. While we acknowledge the potential of Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) 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 discussed Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in another article and shared the list of best AI stocks for the second half of 2024. Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is in 4th position on the list. 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.
