Investment management company Vulcan Value Partners recently released its first-quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The firm has five strategies, and all gained positive returns and outperformed their respective benchmark indexes in the first quarter. The fund’s Large-Cap Composite returned 14.0% net of fees and expenses, the Small Cap Composite returned 8.1% net, the Focus Composite returned 20.4% net, the Focus Plus composite returned 20.4%, and the All-Cap Composite returned 16.8% net. You can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
Vulcan Value Partners highlighted stocks like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a multinational software company that develops, and licenses software, services, devices, and solutions. On May 4, 2023, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock closed at $305.41 per share. One-month return of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was 4.74%, and its shares gained 11.17% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has a market capitalization of $2.278 trillion.
Vulcan Value Partners made the following comment about Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:
“Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was a material contributor during the quarter. Microsoft came in at the top of revenue guidance within its Intelligent Cloud and Productivity and Business Processes segments, whereas its More Personal Computing segment revenue fell short of guidance. The company guided to continued weakness in More Personal Computing next quarter. Azure’s growth decelerated in this quarter, and the company guided Azure to decelerate further next quarter. To offset some of these headwinds, the company is focused on managing expenses to preserve margins. We think an underappreciated strength of Microsoft’s business model is that not only are its products designed to work together, it is more economical for the customer when multiple products are bundled together, which is appealing to customers during economic troubles. We think this bundling approach positions Microsoft well to gain share at the expense of less well positioned competitors during times of economic stress. In addition to the macro environment and the company’s operating results, during the quarter there were announcements around ChatGPT and OpenAI, including Microsoft’s partnership with and investment in OpenAI. This is a complex and rapidly developing opportunity for Microsoft. Overall, what we think this quarter shows is the competitive advantages of Microsoft’s deep competencies in its existing businesses and its optionality from future opportunities.”
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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) holds the first position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 259 hedge fund portfolios held Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 269 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in another article and shared the list of largest R&D companies in the world. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 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.
