Baron Funds, an investment management firm, published its fourth quarter 2020 “Baron Asset Fund” investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of 15.14% was recorded by its Retail Shares, and 15.21% by its Institutional Shares in the fourth quarter of 2020, both below its Russell Midcap Growth Benchmark that delivered a 19.02% return but above its S&P 500 index that was up by 12.15% in the same period. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.
Baron Funds, in their Q4 2020 investor letter, mentioned Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE: MTD) and emphasized their views on the company. Mettler-Toledo International Inc. is a Columbus, Ohio-based analytical laboratory instrument manufacturing company that currently has a $26.4 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, MTD delivered a -0.77% return, but its 12-month gains are up by 75.18%. As of March 22, 2021, the stock closed at $1,130.87 per share.
Here is what Baron Funds has to say about Mettler-Toledo International Inc. in their Q4 2020 investor letter:
“Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. is the world’s leading supplier of weighing instruments for laboratory and industrial applications. The company’s shares increased on third quarter financial results that significantly exceeded investor expectations, coupled with guidance for 2021 well ahead of market forecasts. We continue to believe Mettler is an excellent business with best-in-class management that should be able to compound its earnings at attractive rates well into the future.”
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Our calculations show that Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE: MTD) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Mettler-Toledo International Inc. was in 29 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 30 funds in the third quarter. MTD delivered a 0.47% 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.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
