Heartland Advisors, an investment management company, released its second-quarter 2026 investor letter for the “Heartland Value Plus Fund”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Small-cap stocks rose in the second quarter, with the Russell 2000® Index increasing 21.49%, outpacing the 15.20% gain for the S&P 500 Index. The artificial intelligence trade continues to be a key theme in the market. Small-cap value is benefiting from a strengthening economic environment. The Value Plus Fund rose 19.25% in the second quarter, compared with the 17.19% return for the Russell 2000 Value Index, driven by strong gains from Materials, Energy, and Real Estate holdings. In addition, you can check the Fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2026.
In its Q2 2026 investor letter, Heartland Value Plus Fund highlighted Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) as a material contributor. Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) is a leading industrial technology company that designs, manufactures, and sells electronic components, modules, and subassemblies. On July 14, 2026, Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) closed at $416.31 per share. One-month return of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) was -11.51%, and its shares gained 79.26% over the past 52 weeks. Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) has a market capitalization of $10.53 billion.
Heartland Value Plus Fund stated the following regarding Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) in its Q2 2026 investor update:
“Many of our top performers in Technology were long-standing holdings that have recently added Data Centers as a new end market. An example is Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS), an electronics component supplier specializing in power management fuses for electrical products.
The company’s products have historically been used in telecommunications, consumer electronics, and the industrial sectors. What has gotten the market’s attention lately are Littelfuse’s high-medium voltage protection products, which are key to the AI data center buildout. A few years ago, the company’s data center/grid utility infrastructure sales were largely immaterial. Today, that has grown to around 20% of the business and is highly profitable.
The stock has surged 40% since the end of March, after the company delivered a very strong quarter. Bookings are up more than 20% year over year while EPS continues to rise. Just as important, management is using those growing earnings to return cash to shareholders through rising dividends and stock buybacks. Yet even after large stock gains over the past 12 months, LFUS continues to trade at a discount to its peers, which are sporting an average multiple of nearly 40X earnings.”
Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) is not on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026. According to our database, 43 hedge fund portfolios held Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) at the end of the first quarter, compared to 32 in the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2026, Littelfuse, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:LFUS) net sales were $657 million, up 19% year over year, 9% organically. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) 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 Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) and shared Mairs & Power Balanced Fund’s views on the company in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2026 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.
