ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Despite strong performance from healthcare holdings, the Strategy lagged its benchmark, the Russell 2000 Value Index, due to headwinds in the materials and industrial sectors. While investors continued to focus on a limited number of AI beneficiaries and bitcoin plays, the rest of the market was hit by the economic slowdown and a higher-for-longer interest rate expectation. This made the second quarter particularly difficult to navigate for small-cap stocks. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy highlighted stocks like SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) is a regional airline operator. The one-month return of SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) was 9.21%, and its shares gained 98.72% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 23, 2024, SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) stock closed at $82.21 per share with a market capitalization of $3.305 billion.
ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy stated the following regarding SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“We also added a new position in SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW), a regional airline operator. The company reported strong quarterly earnings as its pilot attrition declines and fleet utilization improves. We believe that SkyWest continues to find opportunities to deploy capital in a value-accretive manner, acquiring more planes under long-term contracts. We think earnings should hold up in a potential recession and perhaps even improve further if major airlines reduce capacity and more pilots become available for SkyWest.”
A commercial plane flying overhead with a scenic view of the region in the background.
SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 28 hedge fund portfolios held SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) at the end of the second quarter which was 24 in the previous quarter. In the second quarter, SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) generated net income of $76 million or $1.82 per diluted share. While we acknowledge the potential of SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) 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 SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) and shared the list of cheap transportation stocks to buy according to analysts along with the industry’s outlook. 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.