Black Bear Value Partners, an investment management firm, published its third-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Black Bear Value Fund returned 0.9% in September and +5.5% YTD and the S&P 500 returned +2.1% in September and +22.1% YTD. HFRI Value Index returned +1.1% in September and +9.4% YTD. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.

Black Bear Value Partners highlighted stocks like CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) engages in the production of bituminous coal. The one-month return of CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) was 14.23%, and its shares gained 1.12% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 9, 2024, CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) stock closed at $106.95 per share with a market capitalization of $3.144 billion.

Black Bear Value Partners stated the following regarding CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:

"ARCH and Warrior are 2 of the leading U.S. producers of high-quality metallurgical coal (“met coal”). This is the kind of coal used for steelmaking. ARCH also has a small thermal coal business that contributes ~20% of their earnings. CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) is a leading producer of thermal coal. During the 3rd quarter ARCH and CONSOL announced a merger which should close in the first half of 2025. I am generally constructive on the merger as the Companies should be able to realize some modest synergies. My sense is more mergers will be coming to this sector given the depressed prices of the securities.

A large coal mining complex on a sunny day, with heavy machinery moving vast amounts of earth.

CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 30 hedge fund portfolios held CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) at the end of the second quarter which was 29 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) 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.