Buckley Capital Advisors, an investment management company, released its second quarter 2026 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The second quarter delivered strong, broad-based gains across the portfolio, with several of the Fund’s largest positions contributing to performance. Buckley Capital returned 36.0% net during the quarter and 29.7% net year-to-date, outperforming the iShares Russell 2000 Value and iShares Russell 2000. The firm remained disciplined in recycling capital by trimming or exiting investments where the thesis had played out or the risk-reward had weakened. Capital was redirected toward businesses where improving fundamentals, catalysts, and attractive valuations support long-term upside. The firm continues to focus on misunderstood small and mid-cap companies with underappreciated earnings power and believes the portfolio is among its strongest in recent years. In addition, please check the firm’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2026.
In its second-quarter 2026 investor letter, Buckley Capital highlighted Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE). Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) provides various financial products and services through its financial services platform. On July 27, 2026, Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) closed at $405.65 per share. One-month return of Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) was 8.87%, and its shares gained 84.19% over the past 52 weeks. Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) has a market capitalization of $5.16 billion with a 52-week trading range between $152.21 and $458.25.
Buckley Capital stated the following regarding Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) in its Q2 2026 investor letter:
“Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) has rallied over 100% from our average cost. While we believe Dave is a great business, the stock has become very expensive. It is now trading at the high end of its historical multiple range, and as such, we fully exited the position. While we continue to believe the business will do well, it will have to perform in line with our upside case for there to be meaningful returns going forward. This may be possible, but the risk-reward is not as attractive as other portfolio holdings.
Our original thesis played out very well: we believed Dave is a great business that gives the average American consumer living paycheck to paycheck access to small but meaningful amounts of short-term cash. We also felt its business model is consistent and predictable. Finally, we believe it has a great management team which knows how to give conservative guidance and create a beat-and-raise dynamic over the course of several quarters. Yet the stock trades with irrationally large swings. When we made our original investment last October, we felt Dave was trading at far too cheap a multiple on our own internal estimates: we were at $17.00/share for 2026 while at the time the sell side was around $12.00. So on our estimates, we were buying Dave at 11x earnings when it was growing earnings at north of 30% per year. We predicted that sell-side expectations would have to move dramatically higher…” (Click here to read the full text)
Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) is not on our list of the 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 41 hedge fund portfolios held Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) at the end of the first quarter which was 56 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Dave Inc. (NASDAQ:DAVE) and shared a list of best performing American stocks in June 2026. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2026 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.
