Harding Loevner, an asset management company, released its “Global Equity Strategy” third-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned 2.62% gross (2.52% net) in the third quarter of 2025, compared to a 7.74% return for the MSCI All Country World Index and 7.36% gain for the MSCI World Index. YTD, the strategy rose 10.61% (net) compared to 18.86% and 17.83% for the indexes. The firm highlighted in the letter that the last six months represented one of the strongest momentum phases in over 70 years. Since the beginning of the year, high-momentum stocks have outperformed low-momentum stocks by a remarkable 45 percentage points, with much of the growth driven by advancements in AI. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Harding Loevner Global Equity Strategy highlighted stocks such as Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the parent company of Google, offers various platforms and services operating through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The one-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was 12.36%, and its shares gained 83.94% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On December 03, 2025, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock closed at $320.62 per share, with a market capitalization of $3.86 trillion.
Harding Loevner Global Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Although the market appears to be almost singularly focused on “Al winners,” the companies anointed with the label continues to change. Bank of America’s US AI Beneficiaries Index already has had 70% turnover this year. For example, a few months ago, markets feared that Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) search business would be made obsolete by Al chatbots such as ChatGPT, and the company did appear to be a step behind when it clumsily rolled out Bard, a consumer-facing chatbot, in 2023. However, Alphabet’s Al offering for businesses is rapidly gaining traction. Its Gemini models now have an enterprise user base that’s triple the size of ChatGPT’s. Thanks to that progress and a strong technical offering. Alphabet has moved back into the winners’ ranks, for now.
Even as Al reshapes industries, it may not disrupt the strong. very entrenched market leaders to the degree some people fear. Some companies appear to be positioned well enough that the idea of them being distracted and unable to profit from the Al trend themselves is an overly pessimistic view. Alphabet may be one example.
In Communication Services, Alphabet’s stock gained after a favorable ruling in the Justice Department’s antitrust case, which spared the company from the worst outcome, a forced sale of its Android operating system or Chrome browser. Instead, remedies such as ending search-exclusivity agreements (e.g., its arrangement with Apple) and providing third parties access to its search index appear manageable.”
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in the 7th position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 186 hedge fund portfolios held Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of the third quarter which was 178 in the previous quarter. In the third quarter of 2025, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) achieved its first-ever $100 billion in revenue. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) 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 Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and shared Brown Advisory Large-Cap Growth Strategy’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2025 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.
