Parnassus Investments, an investment management company, released the “Parnassus Value Equity Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the Fund (Investor Shares) returned -3.81% (net of fees) underperforming the Russell 1000 Value Index’s -2.17% return. Stock selection in the Health Care sector drove most of the portfolio’s underperformance. The firm believes the Fund is well positioned for future returns with AI-related investments in Information Technology complemented by holdings that should benefit from improved performance across other sectors. If investor uncertainty increases, it anticipates finding more bargain opportunities. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.

Parnassus Value Equity Fund highlighted stocks like NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) is a cloud platform provider for AI-driven digital business solutions. The one-month return of NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) was -1.54%, and its shares gained 2.29% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 25, 2024, NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) stock closed at $170.32 per share with a market capitalization of $10.869 billion

Parnassus Value Equity Fund stated the following regarding NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:

"NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) reported first-quarter earnings that exceeded consensus estimates. However, the stock fell on news the company’s CEO plans to leave at the end of the year and on concerns that its contact center software would be replaced by generative AI. We believe the concerns are overblown and anticipate instead that the firm will integrate AI features successfully."

A data scientist sitting in front of a monitor to review the performance of AI-driven digital business solutions.

NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 29 hedge fund portfolios held NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) at the end of the second quarter which was 26 in the previous quarter. In the second quarter of 2024, NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) reported $664 million in total revenues, represents a 14% increase from Q2 2023. While we acknowledge the potential of NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) 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.