ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Growth Strategy” first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. First quarter of 2025 witnessed sharp equities sell off due to the shift out of mega caps. There was a relative outperformance of mid cap growth stocks over large and small cap growth during the first quarter correction, which indicates the broadening of market, that presents attractive opportunities for high active share managers. In the quarter, the ClearBridge Growth Strategy marginally underperformed its Russell Midcap Growth Index benchmark. 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 Growth Strategy emphasized stocks such as AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV). AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) is a research-based biopharmaceutical company. The one-month return of AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) was -17.74%, and its shares gained 7.35% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 10, 2025, AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) stock closed at $174.20 per share with a market capitalization of $308.16 billion.
ClearBridge Growth Strategy stated the following regarding AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“The sales of AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) and Ionis Pharmaceuticals consolidate our exposures within health care toward companies with more attractive and predictable long-term growth prospects. Both companies face slowing growth — AbbVie due to the loss of exclusivity of Humira and the maturing of several of their existing franchises and Ionis due to waning sales for its drug for spinal muscular atrophy, Spinraza. We took advantage of the recent rally in AbbVie to exit as increasing reliance on pipeline and new product execution to support share appreciation make the risk/reward less attractive from here.”
A pharmacist handing out a pharmaceutical drug to a patient in a drug store or chemist.
AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 85 hedge fund portfolios held AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 68 in the third quarter. AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) reported full-year adjusted earnings per share of $10.12, which is $0.49 above the initial guidance midpoint. While we acknowledge the potential of AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) 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 AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) in another article, where we shared the list of best stocks for 15 years. 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.