Artisan Partners: “Booking Holdings (BKNG)’s Positioning Should Benefit Long-Term Performance”

Artisan Partners, a high value-added investment management firm, published its “Artisan Value Fund” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of 10.78% was recorded by its Investor Class: ARTLX, 10.76% by its Advisor Class: APDLX, and 10.75% by its Institutional Class: APHLX for the first quarter of 2021, all below the Russell 1000® Value Index that delivered an 11.26% return, but outperforming the Russell 1000® Index that gained 5.91% in the same period. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Artisan Partners, in its Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG), and shared their insights on the company. Booking Holdings Inc. is a Norwalk, Connecticut-based technology company that currently has a $96.9 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, BKNG delivered a 6.03% return, extending its 12-month gains to 41.35%. As of May 28, 2021, the stock closed at $2,361.55 per share.

Here is what Artisan Partners has to say about Booking Holdings Inc. in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

“While online travel company Booking Holdings has seen the performance of its shares dip recently, we believe its leisure-focused positioning should benefit long-term performance. Leisure travel is likely to return faster than corporate travel, in our view. Booking Holdings’ depth of available choices should be a key differentiator, as well as its ability to bring bargains to the consumer’s attention. While the pace of the recovery is unknown, Booking Holdings’ business model looks well-positioned to thrive post-pandemic.”

Our calculations show that Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG) ranks 18th in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, Booking Holdings Inc. was in 103 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 108 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. BKNG delivered a 1.77% return in the past 3 months.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best innovative stocks to buy to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.