We recently published a list of Billionaire Jim Simons’ RenTech’s 10 Small-Cap Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) stands against Billionaire Jim Simons’ RenTech’s other small-cap stock picks with huge upside potential.
Jim Simons was (and still is even after his death in May 2024) one of the biggest names – if not the biggest – in the hedge fund space. He was a gifted mathematician and had a successful career in academia before making a bold pivot to finance in the late 70s.
In 1978, he founded Monemetrics (a currency trading firm) and Limroy (a hedge fund), which were collapsed into one entity in 1982 and renamed Renaissance Technologies Corporation. This entity had one major objective: to use quantitative, computer-driven models to exploit market inefficiencies. In other words, Simons and his team were committed to making investment decisions based on sophisticated algorithms.
Renaissance Technologies (RenTech) began as a hedge fund but later morphed into something bigger. It is now an investment management firm that operates several hedge funds. Its flagship offering is the Medallion Fund. The Medallion Fund is known for extraordinary returns. During the dot.com crash (early 2000s) and the financial crisis (2007-2011), Medallion’s returns were 56.6% and 74.6%, respectively. Following the first two years of operation, the lowest annual return was 31.5%.
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The Medallion Fund’s track record in the market, and by extension RenTech’s, made Simons a lot of money. At death, he was worth $31.4 billion and ranked among the top 100 richest people in the world. And, as Simons often said, all of the success he had in the market comes down to the love of mathematics. Accordingly, the Medallion Fund has been capable of extraordinary returns mostly because the investment team – led by Simons – leveraged mathematics.
The fund utilizes algorithm-based methods to identify patterns and leverage past data for investing decisions. That is why RenTech invested (and continues to invest) billions in intellectuals and professionals from fields like Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics. In one of his last interviews, he said: “We hired statisticians, physicists, astronomers, mathematicians — the important thing was that they were very smart.”
Jim Simons was a generational talent when it came to investing. He started an investment business and led to heights that others can only dream of. And because his legacy lives in RenTech, it makes sense to want to know what companies they’re invested in.
Our Methodology
We sifted through Renaissance Technologies’ Q4 2024 SEC 13F filings to compile this list. We focused only on shares in companies and excluded interests in ETFs and options. Then, we picked the stocks with a market capitalization of $10 billion or less. From the result, we ranked the stocks based on analyst price targets and selected the top 10 companies with the highest upside potential (as of April 30).
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies
Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI)
Renaissance Technologies’ Stake Value: $147,867,303
Upside Potential as of May 1: 48.40%
Market Capitalization as of May 1: $5.838 Billion
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 26
Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) develops and sells advanced measurement tools (known as metrology solutions) for the semiconductor and electronics industries. These tools help manufacturers check the size and quality of very small, high-tech components during production.
Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) reported record financial performance in Q4 and full year 2024. Revenue for the quarter climbed 9% quarter-over-quarter to $194.8 million. This growth was a remarkable 45% jump year-over-year and exceeded company guidance. For the full year, the firm posted record annual revenue of $672.4 million, a 30% increase compared to 2023. Profitability also grew substantially; non-GAAP net income for the quarter touched $62.3 million ($1.94 per diluted share), up 43% year-over-year. Full-year non-GAAP net income reached $214.9 million ($6.69 per diluted share), a 38% increase from 2023.
According to management, the strong performance was possible because of multiple growth vectors. For starters, sales of materials metrology solutions like the Nova Metrion and Nova Veraflex platforms hit new records. Also, the company posted record sales for dimensional metrology stand-alone solutions for advanced packaging and Gate-All-Around (GAA) manufacturing. Analysts hold a Strong Buy opinion on Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) and their 1-year median price target points to a 48.40% upside from current levels, as of May 1.
Overall, NVMI ranks 5th on our list of Billionaire Jim Simons’ RenTech’s small-cap stock picks with huge upside potential. While we acknowledge the potential of NVMI as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVMI but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
