We recently published a list of Billionaire Jim Simons’ RenTech’s 10 Small-Cap Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Abercrombie & Fitch Company (NYSE:ANF) stands against Billionaire Jim Simons’ RenTech’s other small-cap stock picks with huge upside potential.
Jim Simons was (and still is even after his death in May 2024) one of the biggest names – if not the biggest – in the hedge fund space. He was a gifted mathematician and had a successful career in academia before making a bold pivot to finance in the late 70s.
In 1978, he founded Monemetrics (a currency trading firm) and Limroy (a hedge fund), which were collapsed into one entity in 1982 and renamed Renaissance Technologies Corporation. This entity had one major objective: to use quantitative, computer-driven models to exploit market inefficiencies. In other words, Simons and his team were committed to making investment decisions based on sophisticated algorithms.
Renaissance Technologies (RenTech) began as a hedge fund but later morphed into something bigger. It is now an investment management firm that operates several hedge funds. Its flagship offering is the Medallion Fund. The Medallion Fund is known for extraordinary returns. During the dot.com crash (early 2000s) and the financial crisis (2007-2011), Medallion’s returns were 56.6% and 74.6%, respectively. Following the first two years of operation, the lowest annual return was 31.5%.
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The Medallion Fund’s track record in the market, and by extension RenTech’s, made Simons a lot of money. At death, he was worth $31.4 billion and ranked among the top 100 richest people in the world. And, as Simons often said, all of the success he had in the market comes down to the love of mathematics. Accordingly, the Medallion Fund has been capable of extraordinary returns mostly because the investment team – led by Simons – leveraged mathematics.
The fund utilizes algorithm-based methods to identify patterns and leverage past data for investing decisions. That is why RenTech invested (and continues to invest) billions in intellectuals and professionals from fields like Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics. In one of his last interviews, he said: “We hired statisticians, physicists, astronomers, mathematicians — the important thing was that they were very smart.”
Jim Simons was a generational talent when it came to investing. He started an investment business and led to heights that others can only dream of. And because his legacy lives in RenTech, it makes sense to want to know what companies they’re invested in.
Our Methodology
We sifted through Renaissance Technologies’ Q4 2024 SEC 13F filings to compile this list. We focused only on shares in companies and excluded interests in ETFs and options. Then, we picked the stocks with a market capitalization of $10 billion or less. From the result, we ranked the stocks based on analyst price targets and selected the top 10 companies with the highest upside potential (as of April 30).
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
A close-up of a customer trying on a piece of apparel in the retailer’s spacious dressing room, emphasizing the company’s focus on personal care and experience.
Abercrombie & Fitch Company (NYSE:ANF)
Renaissance Technologies’ Stake Value: $139,711,004
Upside Potential as of May 1: 78.81%
Market Capitalization as of May 1: $3.29 Billion
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 51
Abercrombie & Fitch Company (NYSE:ANF) is a clothing retailer that designs and sells casual sportswear and accessories. It offers apparel and related products for men, women, and kids. The company operates through two brand segments: Abercrombie (including Abercrombie & Fitch and abercrombie kids) and Hollister (including Hollister and Gilly Hicks).
Abercrombie & Fitch Company (NYSE:ANF) reported $4.95 billion in net sales for the full year 2024, up 16% year-over-year. The growth resulted from a comparable sales expansion of 17%, with double-digit increases across all regions and brands. The Abercrombie brand family posted net sales growth of 16%, while the Hollister brand family grew net sales by 15%. As a result, the full-year operating margin came in at 15.0%, a 370 basis point improvement over 2023. Net income per diluted share touched $10.69, a 72% growth year-over-year.
The retailer continues to expand its physical retail footprint with strategically located stores. On April 28, 2025, the company opened its first location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The new 6,000-square-foot store spans two floors and features the brand’s complete women’s and men’s collections along with its activewear range, Your Personal Best (YPB). The Brooklyn opening follows recent international expansions in London and Hong Kong. On April 21, 2025, Barclays initiated coverage with an Equalweight rating and a price target of $71.00. According to the firm, Abercrombie & Fitch Company’s (NYSE:ANF) strong performance and growth opportunities balance against potential challenges to profitability.
Overall, ANF ranks 2nd on our list of Billionaire Jim Simons’ RenTech’s small-cap stock picks with huge upside potential. While we acknowledge the potential of ANF 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 time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ANF but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
