Palm Valley Capital Management, an investment management firm, released the “Palm Valley Capital Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the fourth quarter, Palm Valley Capital Fund declined -0.09% outperforming the -0.58% decline in the S&P SmallCap 600 and slightly underperforming the 0.32% gain in the Morningstar Small Cap Total Return Index. The Fund faced losses on certain equity positions, but these were partly balanced out by gains from Treasury bill holdings. During the quarter the equity positions in the Fund reduced by 3.6%. Cash equivalents comprised 78% of the fund’s assets at the period’s end. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Palm Valley Capital Fund highlighted stocks like ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN), in the fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) offers workforce solutions and services globally. The one-month return of ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) was -8.50%, and its shares lost 25.71% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 6, 2025, ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) stock closed at $56.64 per share with a market capitalization of $2.658 billion.
Palm Valley Capital Fund stated the following regarding ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“The three positions contributing most negatively to the Fund’s fourth quarter return were the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (ticker: PSLV), ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN), and Carters (ticker: CRI). Although Manpower’s performance has been impacted by the weak temporary labor market, the company has remained significantly profitable, in contrast to many smaller staffers. The firm’s exposure to France and other European countries with soft economic outlooks could be giving investors pause. However, revenue only decreased 3% in the third quarter and operating profit was flat from the prior year. The stock is trading for approximately 6x our estimate of normalized operating profit and offers a dividend yield over 5%.”
A busy industrial worker in their uniform operating machinery in a factory setting.
ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 24 hedge fund portfolios held ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) at the end of the third quarter which was 27 in the previous quarter. ManpowerGroup Inc.’s (NYSE:MAN) revenue was $4.5 billion in the third quarter, down 2% year-over-year in constant currency. While we acknowledge the potential of ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) 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 timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we discussed ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) and shared Palm Valley Capital Management’s views on the company in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.