Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Asset Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. Declining interest rates and investors’ increasing confidence that there won’t be a hard-landing economic recession were both influenced by moderating inflation and improving labor market conditions. This bullish outlook fueled investor risk-taking and a robust equities market surge throughout the quarter. Against this backdrop, the fund gained 12.45% (Institutional Shares) in the fourth quarter underperforming the Russell Midcap Growth Index’s 14.55% return. Headwinds from the Fund’s style biases, particularly its underexposure to equities with elevated beta and residual volatility, as well as the impact of stock selection, contributed to its relative underperformance. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron Asset Fund featured stocks such as Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) in the fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) develops decision management solutions to help businesses automate, enhance, and connect decisions. On January 24, 2024, Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) stock closed at $1,275.55 per share. One-month return of Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) was 9.08%, and its shares gained 97.44% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) has a market capitalization of $31.679 billion.
Baron Asset Fund stated the following regarding Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Shares of Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO), a data and analytics company focused on predicting consumer behavior, contributed to performance. The company reported good earnings results and gave preliminary guidance that appears conservative, especially since pricing initiatives in the company’s highly profitable Scores business remain on track. CEO Will Lansing expressed confidence that the business can perform relatively well across different economic backdrops and expressed optimism about the accelerating revenue momentum in its software business. We believe Fair Isaac will be a steady earnings compounder, which should drive solid returns for the stock over a multi-year period.”
An engineer using the latest predictive analytics software to formulate solutions.
Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 44 hedge fund portfolios held Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) at the end of third quarter which was 46 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) in another article and shared the list of near-monopoly stocks in the US. 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.
