Columbia Threadneedle Investments, an investment management company, released its Columbia Contrarian Core Fund second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Columbia Contrarian Core Fund (Institutional Class shares) returned 5.39% (net of fees) in the quarter compared to the Russell 1000 Index’s 3.57% return. Favorable stock selection and positive sector allocation drove the fund’s outperformance in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Columbia Contrarian Core Fund highlighted stocks like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is an American multinational company that designs, manufactures, and markets smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories. The one-month return of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was -0.65%, and its shares gained 32.89% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 26, 2024, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock closed at $227.52 per share with a market capitalization of $3.459 trillion.
Columbia Contrarian Core Fund stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) – Despite the stock falling after announcing earnings in late May, Apple regained ground toward the end of the quarter, fueled by the company’s long-awaited AI announcement at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WDC). At the conference, the company showcased some of its new AI features powered by Apple Intelligence that would be coming to Apple products and also announced a partnership with ChatGPT. Investors greatly welcomed the announcement of Apple’s AI strategy and the stock surged, passing Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company (although this hallmark wouldn’t last). Beta testing of these new features will be coming later this summer, but the initial promise and excitement looks to be a potential catalyst for an upgrade cycle, as the company looks to persuade users who have had the same smartphone for years to consider an upgrade.”
A busy sidewalk filled with people using Apple devices like iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in 9th position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 184 hedge fund portfolios held Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at the end of the second quarter which was 150 in the previous quarter. In the June quarter Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) delivered $85.8 billion in revenues, up 5% from a year ago. While we acknowledge the potential of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) 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 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and shared the list of trending AI stocks on latest news and analyst ratings. 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.