Here’s Why Polen Emerging Markets Growth Sold Autohome (ATHM)

Polen Capital, an investment management company, released its “Polen Emerging Markets Growth Strategy” first quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned 1.48% gross and 1.25% net of fees in the quarter compared to 2.37% for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. Emerging market securities rose in the quarter, carrying over the upward trend from the fourth quarter of 2023. Despite the strong returns of the asset class over the previous six months, emerging equities continued to underperform developed markets. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.

Polen Emerging Markets Growth Strategy highlighted stocks like Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM), in the first quarter 2024 investor letter. Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) is an online destination for automobile consumers. Autohome Inc.'s (NYSE:ATHM) one-month return was -0.59%, and its shares lost 4.12% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On June 5, 2024, Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) stock closed at $28.83 per share with a market capitalization of $3.492 billion.

Polen Emerging Markets Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:

"To fund these new trades, we sold out of e-commerce company Alibaba, the dominant online automotive classifieds platform in China, Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM), and Taiwan e-commerce company Momo.

Although we believe there is a strong "value" case to be made for Alibaba shares given its large cash pile, ongoing buyback program, and significant value-unlocking opportunities in some of its noncore business units (e.g., Alipay), we believe that the return potential is even more significant in some of the high-quality compounder businesses that are currently on sale in China. Similarly, for Autohome, we think that investors today will likely make a solid return given that the core business remains highly cash-generative and is trading at negative enterprise value; however, we are currently finding other ideas in China that are even more compelling."

An assembly line filled with the latest model of an automobile, ready to go to consumers.

Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 14 hedge fund portfolios held Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) at the end of the first quarter which was 15 in the previous quarter. The total revenue of ATHM for the quarter increased to RMB1.61 billion, a 4.9% year-over-year increase. While we acknowledge the potential of Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) 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.

Polen Emerging Markets Growth Strategy commented about Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) in its Q4 2022 investor letter. 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.