
Baron Opportunity Fund
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$45.74
As of 04/29/2025
Net Assets
$1.35 B
Morningstar Rating™
Morningstar Medalist Rating™
SILVER
Inception date
02/29/2000

Michael Lippert
VP, Portfolio Manager, Head of Technology Research
Overview
The Morningstar Rating™ for funds, or "star rating", is calculated for managed products (including mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life subaccounts, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds, and separate accounts) with at least a three-year history. Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds are considered a single population for comparative purposes. It is calculated based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a managed product's monthly excess performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The Morningstar Rating does not include any adjustment for sales loads. The top 10% of products in each product category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars, and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a managed product is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five-, and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. The weights are: 100% three-year rating for 36-59 months of total returns, 60% five-year rating/40% three-year rating for 60-119 months of total returns, and 50% 10-year rating/30% five-year rating/20% three-year rating for 120 or more months of total returns. While the 10-year overall star rating formula seems to give the most weight to the 10- year period, the most recent three-year period actually has the greatest impact because it is included in all three rating periods.
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Prices & Performance
PricesAs of 04/29/2025
NAV | Daily Change ($) | Daily Change (%) | MTD | QTD | YTD |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
$45.74 | $0.16 | 0.35% | 2.83% | 2.83% | -9.48% |
NAV | $45.74 |
---|---|
Daily Change ($) | $0.16 |
Daily Change (%) | 0.35% |
MTD | 2.83% |
QTD | 2.83% |
YTD | -9.48% |
PerformanceAs of 03/31/2025
Portfolio or Index | QTD1 | YTD1 | 1 Year | 3 Years | 5 Years | 10 Years | Since Inception 02/29/2000 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BIOUX - Baron Opportunity Fund - R6 | -11.97% | -11.97% | 7.07% | 8.01% | 19.23% | 16.22% | 9.59% |
Russell 3000 Growth Index | -10.00% | -10.00% | 7.18% | 9.63% | 19.57% | 14.55% | 7.16% |
S&P 500 Index | -4.27% | -4.27% | 8.25% | 9.06% | 18.59% | 12.50% | 7.79% |
1 Not annualized.
The performance data quoted represents past performance. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate; an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. The Adviser may waive or reimburse certain Fund expenses pursuant to a contract expiring on August 29, 2035, unless renewed for another 11-year term and the Fund's transfer agency expenses may be reduced by expense offsets from an unaffiliated transfer agent, without which performance would have been lower. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data quoted. For performance information current to the most recent month end, visit BaronCapitalGroup.com or call 1-800-99-BARON.
The Fund’s historical performance was impacted by gains from IPOs and there is no guarantee that these results can be repeated or that the Fund’s level of participation in IPOs will be the same in the future.
Performance InformationAs of 03/31/2025
Performance statistics | 3 Years | 5 Years | 10 Years |
---|---|---|---|
Standard Deviation (%) | 24.56 | 24.57 | 21.13 |
Sharpe Ratio | 0.15 | 0.67 | 0.68 |
Alpha (%) | -2.21 | -1.83 | 0.47 |
Beta | 1.15 | 1.13 | 1.11 |
R-Squared (%) | 90.78 | 85.90 | 84.38 |
Tracking Error (%) | 8.04 | 9.58 | 8.58 |
Information Ratio | -0.20 | -0.04 | 0.19 |
Upside Capture (%) | 111.18 | 106.03 | 111.43 |
Downside Capture (%) | 120.31 | 112.00 | 111.31 |
Portfolio Holdings & Characteristics
HoldingsAs of 03/31/2025
Holding | Sector | % of Net Assets | |
---|---|---|---|
NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) sells semiconductors, systems, and software for accelerated computing, gaming, and generative AI. Computing demand has been doubling every one to two years, driven by electrification, digitization, and recent advancements in AI, yet supply growth has decelerated dramatically due to the slowdown in Moore's law. NVIDIA’s accelerated computing architecture enables continued growth in supply of computing through parallelization. We are at the tipping point of a new era in computing, with NVIDIA at its epicenter as generative AI adoption grows. Given its leading market share in gaming, data centers, and autonomous machines, we believe NVIDIA can grow rapidly for years to come. | Information Technology | 10.2% | |
Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) is a software company traditionally known for its Windows and Office products. Over the last five years, it has built a $120 billion-plus annual cloud business, including Office 365, CRM product Dynamics 365, and infrastructure-as-a-service product Azure. Over the past decade, Microsoft has transformed itself, refocusing the business on cloud computing and AI. Microsoft's commercial cloud business now represents over 56% of revenue and is growing around 25% year-on-year. Its moat is built on the wide reach of its sales channel, diverse platform of software offerings, hybrid cloud capabilities, and the high costs of switching away from its solutions, which tend to be mission critical for customers. We believe Microsoft will benefit from the growing adoption of cloud for years to come. | Information Technology | 7.2% | |
Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is an e-commerce pioneer, innovator, and market share leader with a relentless focus on providing value and convenience to its customers. Amazon also operates the industry-leading cloud infrastructure business Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon's market share of U.S. online retail sales is around 40%, while its share of global retail sales is less than 5%. Amazon has many avenues for revenue growth, including consumer staples, international expansion, digital media offerings, private label, pharmacy and healthcare services, advertising, and a better shopping experience powered by generative AI. Amazon also represents an opportunity to invest in the secular growth of cloud computing through AWS, a large, growing, margin-accretive part of the business. | Consumer Discretionary | 6.8% | |
Meta Platforms, Inc. Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) owns Facebook, the world's largest social network, with over 3.0 billion monthly and over 2.1 billion daily active users. Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Oculus are also part of the Meta Platforms network, with over 3.3 billion total daily unique users across Meta products. Meta owns unique social platforms with users that continue to demonstrate stickiness and high engagement. Advertisers want to be where users are, and Meta's ability to analyze, target, and show clear, demonstrable, and rising returns on investment makes the platform particularly attractive to them. We believe the company has significant room to further monetize its vast customer base, especially internationally. In addition, we see significant positive optionality from monetization opportunities in generative AI features, video, WhatsApp, and business messaging. | Communication Services | 5.2% | |
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPACEX.A) designs, manufactures, and launches rockets, satellites, and spacecrafts. Its ultimate goal is to make humanity multi-planetary. Products include reusable orbital launch offerings and a broadband service leveraging its satellite constellation, Starlink. We believe SpaceX will continue to drive down the cost of space launches and capture market share with its unique, reliable, and improving reusable launch capabilities. As costs decline, we also expect demand for access to space to increase. By leveraging its launch cost leadership, vertical integration, and innovative design approach, SpaceX has an advantage in building and operating its rapidly expanding satellite-based broadband services, creating an even more attractive growth profile for the company. | Industrials | 5.2% | |
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. (AAPL) designs, manufactures, and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Its products include the iPhone, iPad, Mac personal computer, Apple smartwatch, Apple TV, and HomePod. It also offers advertising and app discovery services through its App Store. As the creator and owner of one of the largest and most popular consumer electronics platforms, Apple, in our view, is well positioned to benefit from the network effect that typically accrues to platform companies. It has a large and growing ecosystem, a trusted brand, and positive optionality through leveraging its large installed base to expand into additional consumer and enterprise services. We believe Apple trades at a discount to our estimate of its intrinsic value, with capital return and growth alleviating near-term trade and iPhone demand uncertainty. | Information Technology | 4.8% | |
Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) designs, develops, and supplies a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. Its semiconductor devices serve broadband, networking, wireless, storage, and industrial markets, while its software offerings focus on operational efficiency tools for large enterprises. Broadcom’s semiconductor portfolio is reaching an inflection point, driven by its AI solutions in networking and custom compute. We expect Broadcom to tap into most of the $75 billion serviceable addressable market in AI across its three largest customers by 2027 and to grow VMware at a high-teens rate over the next few years. The rest of Broadcom’s semiconductor business is recovering, and we expect other software segments to grow at a mid-single-digit rate. The company has best-in-class margins and cash flow, which it returns to shareholders. | Information Technology | 4.5% | |
Spotify Technology S.A. Spotify Technology S.A. (SPOT) is the world's leading music streaming service, with approximately 40% market share. The company monetizes through several tiers of subscriptions, advertising, and miscellaneous a la carte pricing. With over 263 million paying subscribers, Spotify has created a two-sided marketplace where creators can monetize their work and consumers can stream music. Longer term, we expect the company to grow to over 1 billion subscribers (from 675 million today) and improve margins materially through advertising, its artist promotions marketplace, audiobooks, and improved cost discipline. We expect Spotify to continually improve its value proposition through additional features like video, and monetize this value through more optimized pricing tiers like Super Premium. | Communication Services | 4.5% | |
Tesla, Inc. Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) manufactures electric vehicles, including a luxury sedan and CUV (S/X), a mid-sized luxury sedan and hatchback (3/Y), pickup, and semi-truck. It is also ramping up internal battery cell production, energy solutions, and robotics offerings such as full self-driving and humanoids and renewable energy generation and storage solutions. We expect Tesla will continue to grow its automotive business through international production capacity and product expansion. Tesla's vertical integration, technology innovation, brand, profitability, and growing supplier support offer unique and durable growth opportunities that are hard to replicate. In addition, Tesla's energy and software expertise is broadening the industrial opportunity to large and profitable revenue avenues that were previously locked in the legacy vehicle architecture, such as autonomous driving, robotics, insurance, and other AI use cases. | Consumer Discretionary | 4.3% | |
argenx SE Argenx SE (ARGX) is a biotechnology company developing antibodies for the treatment of autoimmune disorders. The company is in the early years of the commercial launch of its drug Vyvgart (efgartigimod alfa) for a rare muscle weakness disorder. Efgartigimod has potentially broad applicability in ameliorating overactive antibody-based diseases. Efgartigimod is a true "pipeline in a product," where the product itself is the platform, as it has the potential to be used against a diverse range of diseases—something that is rarely achieved in the biotechnology space. We expect the share price to increase as argenx proves its product’s effectiveness in multiple autoantibody disorders. | Health Care | 2.8% | |
Total | 55.6% |
Portfolio holdings are subject to change. Current and future portfolio holdings are subject to risk.
Contributors / DetractorsQuarterly as of 03/31/2025
Top Contributors | Average Weight | Contribution |
---|---|---|
X.AI Holdings Corp. | 0.88% | 0.70% |
Spotify Technology S.A. | 3.92% | 0.55% |
Inari Medical, Inc. | 0.20% | 0.40% |
CoStar Group, Inc. | 2.32% | 0.20% |
Visa Inc. | 2.08% | 0.17% |
GICS Sector BreakdownAs of 03/31/2025
Chart
Sector
Information Technology
53.0%
Communication Services
12.8%
Consumer Discretionary
12.3%
Financials
6.3%
Industrials
6.0%
Health Care
5.8%
Real Estate
2.7%
Consumer Staples
0.5%
Cash & Cash Equivalents
0.3%
Materials
0.2%
Sub-Industry
03/31/2025Portfolio CharacteristicsAs of 03/31/2025
Description | Baron Opportunity Fund | S&P 500 Index |
---|---|---|
Inception Date | February 29, 2000 | |
Net Assets | $1.35 billion | |
# of Issuers / % of Net Assets | 44/99.7% | |
Turnover (3 Year Average) | 29.81% | |
Active Share | 56.0% | |
Median Market Cap | $33.71 billion | $35.86 billion |
Weighted Average Market Cap | $1.00 trillion | $905.84 billion |
Expense Ratio | 1.05% | |
As of FYE Current Expense Ratio Date | 1/28/2025 | |
EPS Growth (3-5 year forecast) | 20.7% | 12.3% |
Price/Earnings Ratio (trailing 12-month) | 39.7x | 24.3x |
Price/Book Ratio | 9.2x | 3.7x |
Price/Sales Ratio | 8.2x | 2.7x |
Price/Book Ratio and Price/Sales Ratio are calculated using the Weighted Harmonic Average. Source: FactSet PA. Internal valuation metrics may differ.
Distributions
Record Date | Ex Date | Payable Date | Income | Return of Capital | Short-Term Capital Gain | Long-Term Capital Gain | Total | Re-Invest NAV | Calendar-Year Return |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
12/16/2024 | 12/17/2024 | 12/18/2024 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $2.3307 | $2.3307 | $52.98 | 40.26% |
11/22/2021 | 11/23/2021 | 11/24/2021 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $2.0076 | $1.5956 | $3.6032 | $45.45 | 12.28% |
11/23/2020 | 11/24/2020 | 11/25/2020 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $0.1878 | $2.5970 | $2.7848 | $37.42 | 89.34% |
11/25/2019 | 11/26/2019 | 11/27/2019 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $1.6760 | $1.6760 | $23.49 | |
11/28/2018 | 11/29/2018 | 11/30/2018 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | $0.9258 | $0.9258 | $19.87 | 8.34% |

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