Is it Still Safe to Invest in Block, Inc. (SQ)?

Baron Funds, an asset management firm, published its “Baron FinTech Fund” fourth quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of 2.53% was delivered by the fund’s institutional shares for the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to its benchmarks, the S&P 500 Index, which appreciated 11.03%, and the FactSet Global FinTech Index which rose 7.68% for the same period. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.

Baron FinTech Fund, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) and discussed its stance on the firm. Founded in 2009, Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) is a San Francisco, California-based financial services company with a $59.1 billion market capitalization, and is currently spearheaded by its CEO, Jack Dorsey. Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) delivered a -41.27% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -62.25%. The stock closed at $94.85 per share on March 14, 2022.

Here is what Baron FinTech Fund has to say about Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) in its Q4 2021 investor letter:

“High exposure to lagging E-commerce companies and underperformance of Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) in the Payments theme were the only material detractors from relative performance. E-commerce stocks lagged as a return to in-store shopping caused online shopping growth to moderate. Block was the second largest detractor due to slowing growth in the Cash App segment and greater skepticism about the growth prospects for the pending acquisition of Afterpay.”

Our calculations show that Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) failed to obtain a mark on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) was in 96 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to 98 funds in the previous quarter. Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) delivered a -45.94% return in the past 3 months.

In February 2022, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) in another article. You can find other letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q4 page.

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