Polen Capital, an investment management company, released its “Polen Focus Growth Strategy” third-quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. September saw another duration-driven sell-off in equities similar to what the market witnessed in 4Q 2021 and parts of 2022, but Performance for July-August was meaningfully different from September. In the quarter, the fund fell -3.28% and -3.47%, gross and net of fees, roughly in line with the -3.13% and -3.27% returns of the Russell 1000 Growth and S&P 500 indexes, respectively. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Polen Focus Growth Strategy highlighted stocks like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the third quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a multinational technology company that designs and manufactures smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories. On November 3, 2023, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock closed at $176.65 per share. One-month return of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was -1.31%, and its shares gained 27.16% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has a market capitalization of $ 2.747 trillion.
Polen Focus Growth Strategy made the following comment about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q3 2023 investor letter:
“Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been a meaningful detractor to relative performance in recent quarters as the company has seen moderate earnings growth but substantial P/E multiple expansion. In our view, Apple is a great business but one with more risk factors related to China than we would prefer: relatively low EPS growth, which is being heavily aided by share buybacks (slower EPS growth than every single company in our Portfolio); and a high P/E ratio for this level of growth. This combination rarely leads to excellent long-term share price performance in our experience.
Last quarter, Apple’s new iPhone introduction failed to generate much excitement, with iPhone units declining year over year. There was also news that the Chinese government was blocking its employees from using iPhones. Apple is exposed to the rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. The latter is responsible for much of the company’s incremental iPhone growth, and nearly all of Apple’s supply chain is China-based. The relatively small action by the Chinese government was a reminder to investors that Apple is not immune from geopolitics or other risks.”
An Apple store displaying the latest in consumer electronics, from smartphones to wearables.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in 8th position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 135 hedge fund portfolios held Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at the end of second quarter which was 131 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in another article and shared the list of stocks that will skyrocket. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2023 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.
