Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Small Cap Fund” third-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned 9.68% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter outperforming the Russell 2000 Growth Index’s 8.41% return and the broader Russell 3000 Index’s 6.23% return. For the first nine months of 2024, the Fund is up 14.74% compared to 13.22% and 20.63% returns for the indexes. In contrast to the narrow market leadership of previous periods, the market rally during the quarter saw strong performance across a broad range of sectors and market capitalization. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) designs, manufactures, and services critical digital infrastructure technologies and life cycle services for data centers, communication networks, and commercial and industrial environments. The one-month return of Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) was 25.00%, and its shares gained 216.04% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On November 20, 2024, Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) stock closed at $137.54 per share with a market capitalization of $51.624 billion.
Baron Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) is a leader in data center equipment, with significant share in both power and cooling applications. The stock rebounded off recent weakness, as investors gained confidence that a massive build out of AI data centers globally was on the horizon. Vertiv’s strong relationship with chip manufacturers and involvement in the necessary technology roadmap for solutions as the energy density of server racks increases were catalysts. Vertiv’s orders were up 57% year-over-year in the second quarter, backlog was $7 billion, a record, and 2024 operating profit margin and EPS guidance was raised.”
A close-up of a group of technicians working on complex data center systems.
Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 91 hedge fund portfolios held Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) at the end of the third quarter which was 92 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) 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 Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) and shared the list of AI news investors are paying attention to. In its Q2 2024 investor letter, Baron Small Cap Fund shared its confidence in Vertiv Holdings Co’s (NYSE:VRT) considerable upside potential. 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.