Here’s Why ClearBridge Purchased Lyft (LYFT)

ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Mid Cap Growth Strategy” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the first quarter, the ClearBridge Mid Cap Growth Strategy outperformed the benchmark Russell Midcap Growth Index. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

ClearBridge Investments, in its Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ: LYFT), and shared their insights on the company. Lyft, Inc. is a San Francisco, California-based ridesharing company that currently has a $19.2 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, LYFT delivered an 18.99% return, extending its 12-month gains to 62.05%. As of June 02, 2021, the stock closed at $58.46 per share.

Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about Lyft, Inc. in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

“New purchase Lyft, the No. 2 U.S. rideshare operator, is exclusively focused on the secular growth opportunity in the rideshare market and stands to be a direct economic reopening beneficiary. The company made tremendous progress on margins during 2020 and improved its ability to meet long-term targets. Lyft is also leveraged to the eventual transition to autonomous driving.”

Our calculations show that Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ: LYFT) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, Lyft, Inc. was in 60 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 52 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. LYFT delivered a -5.51% return in the past 3 months.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.