Mattel, Inc. (MAT): Among the Best Stocks to Buy According to John W. Rogers of Ariel Investments

We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Stocks to Buy According to John W. Rogers of Ariel Investments. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAT) stands against John W. Rogers' other stock picks.

John W. Rogers Jr. is a prominent American investor and hedge fund manager who serves as the chairman, CEO, and CIO of Ariel Investments. Rogers graduated from Princeton University in 1980 and spent two and a half years as a stock broker at William Blair. Three years later, he founded Ariel Investments, the first Black-owned mutual fund company in the United States, with $200,000 supported by family and friends. Howard University would be Ariel Investments' initial customer, with the firm receiving $100,000 to manage its endowment. The next year, the city of Chicago granted Ariel $1 million to operate a pension plan. By 2009, Ariel Investments was managing $3.3 billion in assets, which has since increased to a staggering $12.9 billion.

Notably, the investor's flagship Ariel Fund's faced one of its first hurdles back on October 19, 1987, the day of the crash known as Black Monday. The next major test came after the dot-com crisis in 2000, with the Ariel Fund rebounding strongly, returning 29% that year and 14% in 2001. During the 2008 financial crisis, Rogers' investments in equities, such as real estate investment firm CBRE Group and newspaper publisher Gannett, caused the fund to lose 48% before returning 63% in 2009.

Rogers appreciates patience as he looks for companies that he believes will reach their full potential in a set period of years. This strategy of scooping up value stocks, pioneered by famed investors Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham, involves buying stocks whose worth may be undervalued by the market. Speaking on a Bloomberg Invest Conference, the investor stated that market enthusiasts might get overly focused on short-term trends, and those prepared to look three or five years ahead may still uncover opportunities.

Ariel Investments remains steadfast in its belief of value investing, even within the current market climate. This confidence in its strategy was reaffirmed in the fund's Q1 2025 Investor Letter. Here is what Ariel Fund had to say:

Most major U.S. indices ended the first quarter of 2025 in the red, with investors fleeing to safety as optimism for another year of U.S. outperformance driven by economic momentum and the new administration’s pro-business stance was quickly replaced by tariff fears and policy uncertainty. The Magnificent Seven, which drove most of the markets gains over the last three years, led the decline, falling nearly -15%. Value bested growth and large caps held up better than their small cap brethren. International equity markets, led by Europe and China, surged—delivering their strongest quarterly outperformance versus the U.S. in 15 years. Meanwhile, deteriorating confidence and apprehension about a global trade war is fueling recession fears. While Wall Street sits on edge and markets remain erratic, we are actively leaning into the volatility by judiciously acquiring the downtrodden shares of quality companies whose value should be realized over the long term.

Our Methodology

For this list, we picked stocks from Ariel Investments' 13F portfolio as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. These equities are also popular among elite hedge funds.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAT)

Ariel Investments' Stake as of Q4: $262.7 million

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 30

Mattel Inc. (NASDAQ:MAT) is a multinational toy manufacturer headquartered in California. The company focuses on the design and manufacture of high-quality toys and other consumer products. It also produces action figures, building sets, and games under the trademarks MEGA, UNO, and WWE, as well as licensed products from Disney, Microsoft, and NBCUniversal.

The toy manufacturer had a great fourth-quarter performance in 2024, with sales up 3% and operating profit rising 10%. Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAT) expects net sales to climb 2% to 3% in constant currency in 2025, with adjusted EPS ranging from $1.66 to $1.72, representing a 2% to 6% increase. UBS analysts responded by lifting Mattel's price target to $29, citing better-than-expected fiscal year 2025 earnings guidance. Similarly, DA Davidson raised their price target to $30, citing the company's strong execution strategy and intentions for significant share repurchases in 2025.

Longleaf Partners Fund stated the following regarding Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAT) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

“Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAT) – Global toy and media company Mattel contributed for the quarter, reporting solid results for the all-important 4Q, with 2% revenue growth and 6% growth in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). We were also pleased to see management repurchase a material amount of shares at great prices and commit to repurchasing at a high-single-digit percentage of shares outstanding in 2025 if the share price remains attractive. Mattel provided a relatively straightforward and growing outlook for 2025, even taking into account tariff risk at the time. Although conditions have deteriorated since then, CEO Ynon Kreiz’s foresight in diversifying the company’s supply chain years ago will pay dividends. The market continues to price in little future growth for the existing business or further success in media and gaming.”

Overall MAT ranks 5th on our list of John W. Rogers' stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential for MAT as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%.  If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MAT but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

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