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 Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) develops ecosystems focused on commerce and financial products and services. The one-month return of Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) was 0.67%, and its shares gained 50.29% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 26, 2024, Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) stock closed at $66.52 per share with a market capitalization of $40.953 billion.
Columbia Contrarian Core Fund stated the following regarding Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) – It is hard to pinpoint why the stock moved lower in the last two months of the quarter, but the most likely reason seems to be simply that investor sentiment on the stock remains generally quite negative for the near term. Investors seem to be taking recent comments from Jack Dorsey (CEO of Square, who also heads Square’s parent company, Block) to mean that a lot still needs to be fixed, rather than the perspective that Mr. Dorsey is being honest and straightforward that things weren’t working and that Square now has a clear plan and a lot of urgency behind its initiatives. The reinvigoration of Square appears very real, with a bold vision to become a generational technology company. The organization is aligned on making Square and Cash App a vertically integrated commerce platform for both sellers and consumers. For Square, this means achieving a growth rate similar to its early days with much better technology while, for Cash App, success is defined as becoming the leading primary bank for those making less than $150,000 per year, along with significant success combining the two ecosystems. The experimentation and innovation culture is back with buy-in across the organization, with a key focus on engineering discipline and exceptional products. This discipline had been lost and is now coming back and should create much better product experiences that are customer-problem focused and enable the company to regain its prior pace of market share gains.”
People using the Cash App paying for goods and services, highlighting the impact the of the company’s payment tools.
Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 59 hedge fund portfolios held Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) at the end of the first quarter which was 65 in the previous quarter. Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) delivered a strong performance in the second quarter and the gross profit increased by 20% year over year to $2.23 billion. While we acknowledge the potential of Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) 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 Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) and shared the list of best digital payments stocks to buy. Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) detracted from the performance of Baron FinTech Fund during Q2 2024. 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.
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