Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Select Equity Fund” first quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Its Investor Class: ARTNX returned 10.86%, Advisor Class: APDNX returned 10.85%, and Institutional Class: APHNX returned 10.91% compared to a 10.56% return for the S&P 500 Index. The US market recorded gains in a quarter that nearly equated to a full year. Almost all the markets around the world did well in the quarter. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Select Equity Fund highlighted stocks like DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) is a global manufacturer and distributor of various dental products and technologies. The one-month return of DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) was -0.72%, and its shares lost 27.93% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On June 7, 2024, DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) stock closed at $27.69 per share with a market capitalization of $5.749 billion.
Artisan Select Equity Fund stated the following regarding DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) declined 5% this quarter. Dentsply is one of the world’s suppliers of consumables and equipment to dentists in the US and internationally. The company has great market positions, and the dental industry is generally a good one. It grows in line with or above GDP and is nicely profitable for most scale suppliers. Dentsply has been undergoing a turnaround under a relatively new management team. Progress has been visible since the team took over, but distortions coming out of the pandemic have created a volatile operating environment for dental businesses. We sold a large part of our holding at higher prices in 2023 and exited the stock this quarter into Henry Schein, another company in the dental industry that we think is a better value and in which we started building a position in Q3 2023.”
A doctor adjusting dental equipment in a modern dental clinic.
DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 35 hedge fund portfolios held DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) at the end of the first quarter which was 30 in the previous quarter. DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc.’s (NASDAQ:XRAY) organic sales declined 1.9% this quarter, likely due to lower sales in Connected Technology Solutions and Essential Dental Solutions, partly offset by Orthodontic and Implant Solutions and Wellspect HealthCare growth. While we acknowledge the potential of DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) 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 addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 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.