Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its second-quarter 2026 investor letter for its “Artisan Small Cap Fund”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund reported strong absolute returns and modestly outperformed the Russell 2000® Growth Index, which gained 25.7%. Global equities rebounded as resilient US growth, moderating inflation, strong earnings and continued AI investment outweighed delayed rate cuts, rising bond yields and geopolitical uncertainty. Investor Class: ARTSX, Advisor Class: APDSX, and Institutional Class: APHSX returned 26.02%, 26.05%, and 26.11%, respectively, in the second quarter, compared to a 25.71% return for the index. Market leadership favored loss-making, highly leveraged companies, creating a difficult environment for quality-focused active managers. Health care was the strongest relative contributor, while energy, materials, financials and real estate also helped. Technology, industrials and consumer discretionary detracted, partly because the fund did not own oversized index contributors. Software holdings also weakened despite strong fundamentals. The fund remains positive on small-cap opportunities, AI infrastructure and health care, but has reduced software exposure and is staying selective as valuations rise and competitive risks increase. In addition, please check the Fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2026.
In its second-quarter 2026 investor letter, Artisan Small Cap Fund highlighted Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY). Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) develops a cloud-based software solution for healthcare payments. On July 23, 2026, Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) closed at $21.58 per share. One-month return of Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) was 11.13% and its shares lost -38.28% over the past 52 weeks. Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) has a market capitalization of $4.14 billion with a 52-week trading range between $17.26 – $41.47.
Artisan Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) in its Q2 2026 investor letter:
“Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) is a leading cloud-based revenue cycle management platform that supports over 30,000 health care organizations, including 16 of the top 20 US hospitals. Slower-than-expected demand for certain volume-based solutions reduced our confidence in the company’s profit cycle. In addition, we identified more compelling software investment opportunities that had moved back into our preferred market capitalization range.”
Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) is not on our list of the 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 36 hedge fund portfolios held Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) at the end of the first quarter which was 46 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) 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 Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Waystar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:WAY) and shared a list of technology stocks offering more than 50% upside. 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.
