Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Opportunity Fund” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the third quarter, the fund rose 4.04% (Institutional Shares), outperformed the Russell 3000 Growth Index, which gained 3.42%, and lagged the S&P 500 Index, which advanced 5.89%. In the first nine months ended 2024, the fund posted solid gains, rising 25.31% compared to a 24.00% return for the Russell 3000 Growth Index and beating the S&P 500 Index’s 22.08% gain. Due to a significant rotation away from large-cap Magnificent Seven stocks and toward value/cyclical and small-cap stocks, as well as generally positive economic data that supported the soft-landing narrative and the Federal Reserve’s long-awaited dovish pivot, U.S. stocks ended the quarter higher for the fourth consecutive quarter. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.
Baron Opportunity Fund highlighted stocks like CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is a global cyber security solutions provider. The one-month return of CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) was 6.51%, and its shares gained 76.18% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 24, 2024, CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) stock closed at $304.47 per share with a market capitalization of $73.366 billion.
Baron Opportunity Fund stated the following regarding CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is a leading software company focused on the cyber security market. The company’s products help organizations prevent malicious actors from gaining access to, attacking, and shutting down a company’s hardware systems, applications, and databases. Following a well-publicized and disruptive global outage in July – tied to a software glitch in connection with CrowdStrike’s configuration update for Microsoft operating systems – shares fell sharply. Since this time, we have met with management three times, including three days at the company’s recent user conference, speaking to over 50 customers, key partners, and new prospects. It is clear the company will see increased scrutiny on deals, including the implementation of a new incentive program offering customers short-term discounts, free products, and billing flexibility, which will negatively impact bookings, revenue, and cash flow over the near term. However, we came away from our diligence believing CrowdStrike can retain its premium brand and likely emerges stronger over the next year and beyond.”
Security personnel at their consoles, monitoring a global network of threats in real-time.
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 69 hedge fund portfolios held CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) at the end of the second quarter which was 76 in the previous quarter. In the second quarter, CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) achieved Q2 revenue of $964 million which exceeded the expectations. While we acknowledge the potential of CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) 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 CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) and shared the list of best FAANG stocks to buy according to analysts. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) rose 17.5% in the previous quarter, becoming the top contributor to Baron Fund’s performance. 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.