Is it a Good Time to Increase Your Alcon (ALC) Position?

Madison Funds, managed by Madison Asset Management, LLC, released its “Madison Investors Fund” third quarter 2022 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The Madison Investors Fund (Class Y) was down -5.46% in the third quarter, compared to the -4.88% decline in the benchmark S&P 500 Index. The Fund (-21.21%) remains ahead of the benchmark (-23.87%) for the year-to-date period. Try to spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings for you to have an idea about their best stock picks this 2022.

In its Q3 2022 investor letter, Madison Investors Fund mentioned Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) and explained its insights for the company. Founded in 1945, Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) is a Geneva, Switzerland-based ophthalmology company with a $29.7 billion market capitalization. Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) delivered a -30.37% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -27.23%. The stock closed at $60.66 per share on October 27, 2022.

Here is what Madison Investors Fund has to say about Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) in its Q3 2022 investor letter:

“Alcon is a global manufacturer of R&D-intensive eye care products including surgery equipment and devices, and vision care items such as contact lenses. It dominates the surgery side, while it is one of a handful of competitors in an oligopolistic market for lenses. Until a few years ago, Alcon was a unit within the pharmaceutical giant Novartis, but it is now wholly independent. The business has very high margins due to its excellent technological strengths, but we think there is even more room to expand margins over the next few years. Its new product pipeline is full, and it continues to have headroom in optimizing its business as an independent company rather than a unit of a larger conglomerate. The contact lens business can be fairly resilient, but eye surgery tends to be more discretionary, so Alcon may feel the effects of macroeconomic turmoil in its results. The shares have come down along with the market downdraft, and we added to our investment.

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Our calculations show that Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) fell short and didn’t make it on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) was in 26 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2022, compared to 24 funds in the previous quarter. Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) delivered a -22.32% return in the past 3 months.

In (date of publication), we also shared another hedge fund’s views on Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) in another article. You can find other investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2022 Q3 page.

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