Aristotle Capital Boston, LLC, an investment advisor, released its “Small Cap Equity Strategy” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The third quarter showed substantial gains for small-cap stocks, with the Russell 2000 index providing a total return of 9.27%. In the third quarter, the fund delivered a return of 7.40% net of fees (7.57% gross of fees) underperforming the Russell 2000 Index’s 9.27% total return. Both security selection and allocation effects drove the underperformance of the strategy in the quarter. For more information on the fund’s best picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.

Aristotle Small Cap Equity Strategy highlighted stocks like ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW) is a software company that develops, installs, and supports a wide range of software products and solutions to facilitate digital payments. The one-month return of ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW) was -1.66%, and its shares gained 113.63% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 31, 2024, ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW) stock closed at $49.20 per share with a market capitalization of $5.149 billion.

Aristotle Small Cap Equity Strategy stated the following regarding ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:

"ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW), a provider of software solutions to facilitate payment transactions for financial institutions, retailers, and payment processors around the world, benefited from strong second-quarter results largely driven by growth in the bank segment along with the announcement of a $400 million stock buyback program. We maintain our investment as we believe the company is executing its strategy to maintain a strong market position in the payments software niche while upgrading its technology in select areas. With ongoing cost controls and high incremental margins on new revenue, we expect the company can drive additional growth with continued debt reduction and share repurchases."

A businesswoman using a digital tablet, making a payment using the company's payment processing technology.

ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 23 hedge fund portfolios held ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW) at the end of the second quarter which was 19 in the previous quarter. ACI Worldwide, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:ACIW) revenue for the second quarter of 2024 was $373 million, up 16% from Q2 2023, and its adjusted EBITDA was $93 million, up 62% compared to Q2 2023. While we acknowledge the potential of ACI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIW) 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.