Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Global Opportunities Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US equities experienced significant gains in Q4, showcasing a strong year. The portfolio showed slight weakness in Q4 but posted a strong absolute return in 2024. In the fourth quarter, the fund’s Investor Class ARTRX returned -1.67%, Advisor Class APDRX posted a return of -1.65% and Institutional Class APHRX returned -1.62%, compared to a -0.99% return for the MSCI All Country World Index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.

In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Artisan Global Opportunities Fund emphasized stocks such as Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET). Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) is a technology company that engages in the development and distribution of data-driven, client to cloud networking solutions. The one-month return Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) was -4.96%, and its shares gained 11.04% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 2, 2025, Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) stock closed at $80.16 per share with a market capitalization of $101.091 billion.

Artisan Global Opportunities Fund stated the following regarding Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

"Along with NovoNordisk, a notable trim in the quarter included Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET). Arista Networks is the market leader in cloud networking equipment used in data centers. Shares have strongly outperformed since the beginning of 2023 as its ethernet options capture market share in AI cloud environments. Many of the largest buyers in this space are focused on utilizing Arista’s networking technology, given meaningful increases in GPU utilization rates versus InfiniBand, the out-of-the-box solution from NVIDIA. We believe Arista remains exceptionally well positioned. However, we have been trimming the position due to our valuation discipline."

A technician in a server room managing a large-scale network of computers.

Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 78 hedge fund portfolios held Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 70 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) 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.

We covered Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) in another article, where we shared the list of stocks Jim Cramer put under a microscope. 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.