ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Dividend Strategy” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the S&P 500 Index increased 4.3%, for a half-year gain of 15.3%. The performance for the quarter was almost entirely driven by the information technology (or “IT”) sector. The firm has optimistic views about the economy and not expecting a recession near term despite a slowdown in activity. During the second quarter, the strategy underperformed its S&P 500 Index benchmark. The strategy gained four out of 11 sectors in which it was invested in the quarter on an absolute basis. The IT sector was the main positive contributor, while the materials and financial sectors detracted. Stock selection and sector allocation detracted, relatively. Please review the strategy’s top five holdings to see its best choices for 2024.
ClearBridge Dividend Strategy highlighted stocks like Sempra (NYSE:SRE), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Sempra (NYSE:SRE) is an energy infrastructure company. The one-month return of Sempra (NYSE:SRE) was -1.71%, and its shares gained 2.82% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 3, 2024, Sempra (NYSE:SRE) stock closed at $75.17 per share with a market capitalization of $47.571 billion.
ClearBridge Dividend Strategy stated the following regarding Sempra (NYSE:SRE) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Utilities rose largely on merchant power companies serving the data centers powering AI; the rest of the sector, along with real estate, suffered as rate cut expectations were pushed out. One exception was our holding Sempra (NYSE:SRE) — a well-managed and diversified utility holding company. Sempra possesses large franchises in Texas and California, as well as a large LNG business. Sempra is a leading player in each of its markets and all its segments enjoy robust growth outlooks, which should drive high-single-digit growth for the company overall.”
A power transmission tower with a desert sunset in the background, symbolizing power and energy.
Sempra (NYSE:SRE) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 35 hedge fund portfolios held Sempra (NYSE:SRE) at the end of the first quarter which was 33 in the previous quarter. Sempra (NYSE:SRE) generated an adjusted EPS of $1.34 in the first quarter 2024 (see the details here). While we acknowledge the potential of Sempra (NYSE:SRE) 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 discussed Sempra (NYSE:SRE) in another article and shared the list of best utility stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2024 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.
