Baron Funds Retains Long-Term Conviction on MSCI

Baron Funds, an asset management company, released its “Baron Growth Fund” second quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund fell 18.69%. The fund performed moderately better in the quarter compared to a 19.25% decline in the Russell 2000 Growth benchmark Index. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2022.

In the second quarter investor letter, Baron Funds discussed stocks like MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI). Headquartered in New York, New York, MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) is a finance company that provides support to clients in investment decisions and management. On September 1, 2022, MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) stock closed at $456.91 per share. One-month return of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) was -8.02% and its shares lost 29.64% of their value over the last 52 weeks. MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) has a market capitalization of $36.783 billion.

Here is what Baron Funds specifically said about MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI):

“For example, index and analytics provider MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) serves an addressable market that we estimate to be at least 15 times larger than its current business. Growth is benefiting from escalating complexity in managing and monitoring investment processes, a secular shift towards passive strategies, and emerging demand for information and analytics to support ESG and climate-oriented investing. Over 95% of MSCI’s annual revenue is from recurring sources, and the company boasts retention rates across its business that exceed 90% annually.

Shares of MSCI, Inc., a leading provider of investment decision support tools, detracted from performance. Despite reporting solid quarterly earnings results and strong underlying performance, the stock sold off due to broader market weakness and concerns regarding the sensitivity of MSCI’s asset- based fee revenue to global equity market performance. We retain long- term conviction, as MSCI owns strong, “all weather” franchises and remains well positioned to benefit from numerous secular tailwinds in the investment community.”

Photo by DocuSign on Unsplash

MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) is not on the list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) was held by 40 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the second quarter, which was 53 in the previous quarter.

We discussed MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) in another article and shared Stewart Asset Management’s views on the company. You can check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2022 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other prominent investors.

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