ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Value Strategy” first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the first quarter, the strategy underperformed its Russell 1000 Value benchmark, driven by detractors in the energy and financials, which overcame contributions from overweight to energy and underweight to IT. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its first quarter 2025 investor letter, ClearBridge Value Strategy emphasized stocks such as The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS). The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) is an entertainment company that operates through Entertainment, Sports, and Experiences segments. The one-month return of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) was -17.25%, and its shares gained 30.27% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 8, 2025, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) stock closed at $81.72 per share with a market capitalization of $147.73 billion.
ClearBridge Value Strategy stated the following regarding The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“While we had already begun to shift toward a more defensive positioning entering the quarter, we made a number of adjustments in response to the rapid-fire developments in both economic and political policy. Among our largest new positions during the period was The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS), as we believe that it has turned a corner on building out its streaming service, which should help margins inflect higher and help drive better earnings than the market currently anticipates. The shift in management’s strategy, from “market share growth at all costs” to a more focused approach on improving pricing should also help to improve both profitability and margins, and we believe that there remains meaningful upside compared to other streaming service providers at similar scale.”
A packed theater of moviegoers watching a blockbuster film produced by the entertainment company.
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 108 hedge fund portfolios held The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 76 in the third quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
We covered The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) in another article, where we shared the list of best cruise stocks to buy according to hedge funds. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.