Giverny Capital Asset Management, LLC, an investment management company, recently published its fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The portfolio continued its strong performance in the fourth quarter, but trailed the S&P 500 Index. The portfolio returned 0.78% compared to a 2.41% return for the S&P 500 Total Return Index in the quarter. The fund returned 21.09% in 2024 compared to the 25.02% return for the Index during the same period. For more information on the fund’s top picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Giverny Capital Asset Management emphasized stocks such as Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL). Founded in 2009, Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) is a specialty insurance company. The one-month return Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) was 18.79%, and its shares gained 18.05% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 6, 2024, Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) stock closed at $494.72 per share, with a market capitalization of $11.521 billion.
Giverny Capital Asset Management stated the following regarding Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL), purchased in 2023. Kinsale is an insurance company specializing in less regulated commercial liability and property coverage. It sells policies that often offer limited coverage for low prices to small businesses that may be price sensitive. As such, it has invested in state-of-the art technology that lets it assess risk and quote prices efficiently on the kinds of low-cost policies that larger insurers avoid.
Its expense structure is far lower than most peers, allowing it to grow rapidly while remaining highly profitable. We greatly respect the founder and CEO, Mike Kehoe, who owns 3.8% of the company. We believe Kinsale has a chance to grow well beyond its current market share of about 1.5%. It is rare for a small company to have the leanest expense structure in its industry. This stock has been a fine performer for us so far and we’re hopeful our holding period will be quite long. Kinsale trades for about 25x earnings estimates, but it also doubled EPS from 2022 to 2024. Market Cap: $10 billion.”
A Professional insurance broker discussing coverage plans with a small business owner.
Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 32 hedge fund portfolios held Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) at the end of the third quarter which was 28 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) 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 Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL) and shared the list of high growth financial stocks to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.