Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Fund” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the third quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTMX returned 2.35%, Advisor Class fund APDMX posted a return of 2.38%, and Institutional Class fund APHMX returned 2.40%, compared to a 6.54% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. Negative security selection within health care, information technology, and industrials led to the fund’s underperformance in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) provides cancer screening and diagnostic test products. The one-month return of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) was 1.07%, and its shares gained 6.83% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 15, 2024, Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) stock closed at $69.95 per share with a market capitalization of $12.925 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Among our top Q3 contributors were Argenx, Spotify and Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS). Exact Sciences is a leading provider of diagnostic testing and a maker of the noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test Cologuard®. Shares fell in the first half of the year due to investor concerns around competing blood-based tests. However, we remained invested because blood tests, while potentially more convenient, have historically been unable to match the accuracy of stool testing (especially when it comes to detecting early cancers), and we believed its valuation failed to capture Cologuard’s significant long-term growth and margin expansion opportunity. Our patience was rewarded when the company reported accelerating Cologuard revenue growth (from 7% to 15%). Growth is also expected to improve further in the second half of the year as Exact Sciences partners with hospital networks and payors to meet colon cancer screening targets before year-end. Furthermore, the company disclosed early data for its own blood-based colon cancer screening test. While not as accurate as Cologuard, this test may prove to be more predictive and cheaper than competing blood tests.”
A research team in a laboratory discussing the results of a lab screening test for biomarkers.
Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 37 hedge fund portfolios held Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) at the end of the second quarter which was 48 in the previous quarter. In the second quarter, Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) delivered $699 million in revenue, up 12% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) 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 Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) and shared the list of buzzing AI health stocks. Artisan Mid Cap Fund’s performance was negatively impacted by a decline in Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in the previous quarter. 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.