Is it Wise to Invest in Wayfair Inc. (W)?

Artisan Partners, a high value-added investment management firm, published its ‘Artisan Mid Cap Fund’ fourth quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of -0.72% was recorded by its Investor Class: ARTMX, -0.68% by its Advisor Class: APDMX, and -0.66% by its Institutional Class: APHMX, in the fourth quarter of 2021, all underperforming the Russell Midcap® Growth Index that delivered a 2.85% return, and the Russell Midcap® Index that was up by 6.44% for the same period. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.

Artisan Mid Cap Fund, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W) and discussed its stance on the firm. Wayfair Inc. is a Boston, Massachusetts-based furniture e-commerce company with a $12.8 billion market capitalization. W delivered a -35.54% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -54.13%. The stock closed at $122.45 per share on February 22, 2022.

Here is what Artisan Mid Cap Fund has to say about Wayfair Inc. in its Q4 2021 investor letter:

“Wayfair is a leading online furniture retailer. The company was a pandemic beneficiary in 2020 as physical retail store closures and a wave of consumer home investments led to a dramatic increase in sales. In 2021, the company understandably experienced a material slowdown in growth as the pandemic benefits normalized, though we still saw the longer term profit cycle potential as compelling with lightly penetrated markets—domestically and internationally—for online home goods and an opportunity to move into adjacent categories (such as business-to-business furniture procurement). This fact pattern changed when our research uncovered the company losing market share to key competitors in the home category. We are concerned customer acquisition efficacy could be deteriorating, and another investment cycle may be required to reinvigorate growth. We pared our position back into the GardenSM during Q4 as we await signs the longer term growth drivers are taking hold.”

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Our calculations show that Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W) failed to obtain a mark on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. W was in 28 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to 31 funds in the previous quarter. Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W) delivered a -52.64% return in the past 3 months.

In January 2022, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on W in another article. You can find other letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q4 page.

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