Fred Alger Management, an investment management company, released its “Alger Small Cap Focus Fund” fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The US equity market ended the fourth quarter on a strong note, with the S&P surging 2.7%, maintaining its steady upward momentum. Investors’ optimism was supported by better-than-expected corporate earnings, the US Federal Reserve’s further interest rate easing stance, and a resilient macroeconomic backdrop. Improving clarity on trade policy provided additional support. Meanwhile, the quarter was characterized by increasing divergence below the index level surface. The enthusiasm for AI investment is facing growing doubts due to bottlenecks, financing challenges, and uncertainty over its ability to generate returns. The firm continues to observe secular trends that present attractive investment opportunities for small-cap stocks. In Q4 2025, Class A shares of the Fund outperformed the Russell 2000 Growth Index. The Utilities and Financials sectors contributed to the relative performance of the Fund in the quarter, while the Consumer Discretionary and Information Technology sectors detracted from performance. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter, Alger Small Cap Focus Fund highlighted stocks such as Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN). Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) designs and distributes products and processes to offer integrated solutions for the biopharma and healthcare industries. The one-month return of Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) was -3.80%, and its shares lost 13.57% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 16, 2026, Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) stock closed at $19.75 per share, with a market capitalization of $5.392 billion.
Alger Small Cap Focus Fund stated the following regarding Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) in its fourth quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) is a leading supplier of pharmaceutical-grade glass packaging used to store and deliver medicines, including vials, pre-filled syringes, and cartridges across many therapies. The company also provides end-to-end solutions that support the drug life cycle, which can shorten lead times, lower total costs, and reduce supply-chain risk for customers. Shares detracted in the fourth quarter after third-quarter results benefited from shipment timing—orders that were originally expected to ship in the fourth quarter were pulled forward into the third quarter—raising concerns that fourth-quarter results would be softer. Full-year revenue guidance was unchanged, which also implied a fourth-quarter outlook slightly below investor expectations. In addition, some investors remain concerned that the growth of oral GLP-1 drugs could eventually take share from injectable GLP-1s, a recent demand driver for Stevanato’s delivery components.”
