Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Small Cap Fund” third-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In Q3, markets contributed to strong year-to-date gains, though not without some volatility. As shown by the Russell 2000 Index, small-cap equities increased by 9%, while the broad market Russell 3000 Index increased by slightly more than 6%. Against this backdrop, the strategy trailed the index and returned 8.43% in the quarter compared to 9.27% for the Russell 2000 Index. For more information on the fund’s top picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.

Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) offers additives and specialty ingredients that operates through Life Sciences, Personal Care, Specialty Additives, and Intermediates segments. The one-month return of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) was 1.15%, and its shares gained 12.19% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 30, 2024, Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) stock closed at $87.14 per share with a market capitalization of $4.174 billion.

Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:

"Among our bottom Q3 contributors were Civitas Resources and Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH). Specialty chemical manufacturer Ashland saw weaker demand in its life sciences business in Q3 combined with new competitive pressures from a peer’s reopening of a large plant that produces chemicals used in pharmaceutical pill coatings and crop management chemicals. Though it remains to be seen whether Ashland’s normalized revenues in a post-pandemic world are lower than expected, management has handled the last few years’ volatility well, prudently allocating capital. We are watching for signs the company’s new product platforms — about which management is very optimistic — will provide the anticipated upside in future quarters."

A scientist in a lab coat mixing the chemicals for the Liposomal Bcl-2 drug development.

Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 25 hedge fund portfolios held Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) at the end of the second quarter which was 25 in the previous quarter. The fiscal third quarter sales of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) were roughly in line with prior year at $544 million. While we acknowledge the potential of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) 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.