Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Health Care Fund” first quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund advanced 8.92% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter compared to an 8.52% gain for the Russell 3000 Health Care Index (benchmark) and a 10.56% increase for the S&P 500 Index. The fund rose 13.61% on an annualized basis since its inception on April 30, 2018, compared to an 11.45% gain for the benchmark and a 14.24% gain for the index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Health Care Fund featured stocks like Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) offers medical and specialty insurance. On April 23, 2024, Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) stock closed at $327.98 per share. One-month return of Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) was -6.16%, and its shares lost 35.11% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) has a market capitalization of $39.538 billion.
Baron Health Care Fund stated the following regarding Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“We sold Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) because the Medicare Advantage business faces challenges, including elevated medical expenses and rate pressure. Health Care is off to a good start in 2024, though not as strong as the rest of the equity market due in part to the underperformance of managed care stocks. The Medicare Advantage business has experienced a perfect storm of elevated medical cost trends and less favorable reimbursement from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It’s possible that these are short-term, temporary headwinds, but near-term earnings visibility is low, and CMS has made several policy decisions over the past year that are negatively impacting the industry, raising questions about the attractiveness of the Medicare Advantage business going forward. Given this uncertainty, we sold our position in Humana Inc.”
A closeup of an elderly patient happily receiving a specialty healthcare product.
Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. At the end of the fourth quarter, Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) was held by 86 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 81 in the previous quarter, according to our database.
We discussed Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) in another article where we shared the list of stocks receiving price-target cut from analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2024 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.
