Vltava Fund, an investment management company, recently released its third-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The letter is addressed “Value Traps and Growth Traps,” based on the firm’s three new investments from the last quarter. While value and growth stocks seem like clear categories, the author believes they are interconnected rather than opposites. A value trap occurs when investors buy seemingly cheap stocks with underlying structural issues, resulting in stagnation or a decline in share price. However, a growth trap arises when investors purchase shares of rapidly growing companies with high valuations that unexpectedly slow down, leading to reduced projections and declining valuation multiples. Basically, both value and growth are two sides of a coin, and the investor should combine a reasonable price with a realistic outlook. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Vltava Fund highlighted stocks such as Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO). Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) engages in the research and development, manufacture, and distribution of pharmaceutical products. The one-month return of Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) was -7.97%, and its shares lost 48.20% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 3, 2025, Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) stock closed at $59.63 per share, with a market capitalization of $263.101 billion.
Vltava Fund stated the following regarding Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) probably needs no long introduction. It is one of Europe’s largest companies and a global leader in the treatment of two major lifestyle diseases – diabetes and obesity. The company has grown historically through the development and production of insulin and has held a dominant share of the global market in that group of products for decades. In recent years, obesity treatment has become its key growth segment. Its best-known product is Wegovy, which has proven to be highly effective in weight reduction. A smaller part of the business consists of drugs for rare diseases, particularly in the areas of hemophilia and growth hormone therapy. Novo Nordisk has highly integrated production, from molecule development to fully automated filling lines for injection pens, and global distribution to more than 170 countries, with a focus on the United States, Europe, and a rapidly growing share in Asia. Its biggest competitor is Eli Lilly, and these two companies now effectively form a duopoly in modern treatment of diabetes and obesity. Barriers to entry into the industry are extremely high, due to long development times, regulation, and enormous investments in production and distribution.
