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Maple Tree Capital, an investment management company, released its Q1 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Q1 2025 saw a strong start but turned sour due to tariff concerns and macroeconomic fears, leading to a sharp market pullback, with the Nasdaq falling nearly 22% from its highs and the S&P 500 down 20%. Despite the challenges, the firm made significant progress this quarter by averaging in the top-conviction stocks, utilizing covered calls, and exercising patience. Maple’s growth-oriented fund, Jonagold, has become a standout performer, greatly surpassing all major benchmarks since its launch in 2023. While Heartwood is still facing difficulties. Maple Tree Capital’s Jonagold returned -13.64% in Q1 compared to the Nasdaq’s -10.26% return and the Russel 2000’s -9.48% return. Maple Tree Capital’s Heartwood returned -18.04% in Q1 vs. the S&P 500’s -4.27% and the Dow Jones’ -0.87% return. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Maple Tree Capital highlighted stocks such as Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASO). Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASO) is a US-based sporting goods and outdoor recreational retailer. The one-month return of Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASO) was 8.73%, and its shares lost 27.68% of their value over the past 52 weeks. On May 27, 2025, Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASO) closed at $40.97 per share, with a market capitalization of $2.726 billion.
Maple Tree Capital stated the following regarding Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASO) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
"Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASO) has been hit hard from the recent Trump tariffs, but what retailer hasn’t? Undoubtedly, tariffs are bad for retailers and will hurt ASO’s business. However, our original thesis is still intact and has always been the same. Academy is struggling to currently grow sales as the sports and outdoors segment has not been doing as well post COVID. In other words, that segment of the market was trendy. Academy now faces challenges in growing same store sales, but at the same time they have a solvent balance sheet, trading at TTM earnings of 6.3x and FWD earnings of 6x. Any revenue growth here has the potential to result in a huge re-rating. Academy continues to buy back stock and return capital to shareholders in the meantime."
A person fishing in the lake, using the companies fishing equipment to reel in their catch.