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 Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) is a company that provides marketing and monetization services. The one-month return of Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) was -11.62%, and its shares gained 50.32% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 23, 2024, Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) stock closed at $42.00 per share with a market capitalization of $2.356 billion.
ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy stated the following regarding Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“New positions in the quarter were from a variety of sectors. Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO), in the communication services sector, provides digital advertising technologies that help drive clients’ e-commerce businesses. While the company was previously reliant on third-party cookies to help optimize its products, management has spent the past five years pivoting away from this technology and focusing on building a leading presence in the burgeoning retail media space. We believe this transformation has reached a tipping point, and that the inherent growth opportunities in this new end market represent a higher growth rate then is currently reflected in the company’s valuation.”
A graphic designer in front of a computer rendering a cutting edge digital advertisement for the company.
Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 18 hedge fund portfolios held Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) at the end of the second quarter which was 14 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) 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 Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) and shared the list of best marketing stocks to buy. 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.