ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Large Cap Growth Strategy” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy underperformed its Russell 1000 Growth Index benchmark during the first quarter. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains across four of the eight sectors in which it was invested (out of 11 sectors total). 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 QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM), and shared their insights on the company. QUALCOMM Incorporated is a San Diego, California-based semiconductor manufacturing company that currently has a $153.3 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, QCOM delivered a -10.74% return, while its 12-month gains are up by 57.40%. As of June 11, 2021, the stock closed at $134.62 per share.
Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about QUALCOMM Incorporated in its Q1 2021 investor letter:
“Within IT, we have also increased exposure to a cyclical semiconductor industry currently working through a severe supply shortage due to several years of capacity reductions, COVID-19 shutdowns and one-off production delays as well as demand resilience in areas like autos and smartphones. The main risk for semiconductors is short-term revenue pressure until capacity catches up with demand, which hurt wireless chipmaker Qualcomm. Looking past current constraints, we expect the industry to see a strong second half and solid growth in 2022.”
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Our calculations show that QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) 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, QUALCOMM Incorporated was in 73 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 85 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. QCOM delivered a 4.03% return in the past 3 months.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
