Strong Results Lifted Shopify (SHOP) in Q4

Baron Capital, an investment management company, released its Q4 2025 letter for its “Baron Global Opportunity Fund”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Baron Global Opportunity Fund showcased a strong fourth quarter and an outstanding year. The Fund rose 6.5% (Institutional Shares) in Q4 compared to 3.3% return for the MSCI ACWI Index (the Index) and the 2.8% gain for the MSCI ACWI Growth Index, the Fund’s benchmarks. For 2025, the Fund was up 27.5%, exceeding 22.3% and 22.4% returns for benchmarks, respectively. For the Fund, the year has been defined by the challenges of de-globalization and the support from easing Federal Reserve policies, the beginnings of the AI investment cycle, and its investment in SpaceX. The Fund concluded the year with 42 investments, up from 38 the previous year, with 35 stocks accounting for 99.3% of its net assets. Please review the Fund’s top five holdings to gain insights into their key selections for 2025.

In its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter, Patient Opportunity Equity Strategy highlighted stocks such as Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP). Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) is a Canada-based e-commerce technology company that provides a cloud-based platform for individuals and companies to create and manage their operations. The one-month return for Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) was 16.55%, and its shares gained 26.50% over the last 52 weeks. On March 04, 2026, Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) stock closed at $129.65 per share, with a market capitalization of $169.204 billion.

Patient Opportunity Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) in its fourth quarter 2025 investor letter:

"Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) is a cloud-based software provider for multi-channel commerce. Shares rose 8.3% in the fourth quarter, finishing 2025 up 51.1% on strong financial results that outperformed Street expectations. The company is demonstrating rapid growth at scale with gross merchandise value (GMV) and revenues each growing over 30% year-on-year. Business fundamentals are strong across geographies, customer types, verticals, channels, and commerce categories. In the third quarter, Shopify grew international GMV by 41%, offline by 31%, and B2B by 98% (all year-over-year). They signed Estee Lauder for Shopify Plus, a significant win for their enterprise strategy, which provides further evidence of the scalability of their platform. The company continues to make progress on its vertical total addressable market (TAM) expansion as well by deepening the solutions it offers merchants including ongoing success with their accelerated checkout (Shop Pay), growing adoption of Shopify payments, expansion of Shopify Capital, and other newer solutions such as their advertising solution, Shopify Campaigns, which is off to a strong start, with a 9 times increase in budget commitments from merchants year-over year. Shopify has also emerged as a leading enabler in the nascent AI-commerce category (shopping within Large Language Models (LLMs) chat-bots such as ChatGPT). We continue to own the stock and believe Shopify is a rare platform business that has many call options on future growth verticals, as the company’s culture and merchant obsession drives rapid product innovation, helping sustain growth for years to come."

Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) is not on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. According to our database, 101 hedge fund portfolios held Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) at the end of the fourth quarter, up from 91 in the previous quarter. Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) reported its fourth quarter 2025 results, marking its first-ever quarter with revenue exceeding $3 billion. While we acknowledge the potential of Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

In another article, we covered Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) and shared a list of best innovative stocks to buy according to Wall Street analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

READ NEXT: The Best and Worst Dow Stocks for the Next 12 Months and 10 Unstoppable Stocks That Could Double Your Money.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.