Is Williams Co. (WMB) A Great Investment Choice?

ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Dividend Strategy” third quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge Dividend Strategy outperformed its S&P 500 Index benchmark during the third quarter. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains in six of 11 sectors in which it was invested for the quarter. The main contributors to Strategy performance were the financials and IT sectors. The materials and industrial sectors, meanwhile, were the main laggards. You can take a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their best picks for 2021.

ClearBridge Investments Dividend Strategy, in its Q3 2021 investor letter, mentioned The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE: WMB) and discussed its stance on the firm. The Williams Companies, Inc. is a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based energy company with a $33.3 billion market capitalization. WMB delivered a 5.38% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 28.83%. The stock closed at $27.44 per share on January 06, 2022.

Here is what ClearBridge Investments Dividend Strategy has to say about The Williams Companies, Inc.  in its Q3 2021 investor letter:

“We are meaningfully overweight energy, particularly within North American energy infrastructure. Enbridge and Williams, our two infrastructure holdings, possess crown jewel infrastructure assets. They each deliver meaningful proportions of the overall energy produced and consumed in North America. Their revenues are backed by long-term contracts with high-quality counterparties and have little direct commodity price exposure. Their growth has been driven by the increasing production of North American energy. The advent of unconventional oil and gas production (oil sand and shale) has made North America a low-cost competitor on a global basis. We expect strong North American production to be an enduring feature of global energy supply for decades to come.”

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Based on our calculations, The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE: WMB) was not able to clinch a spot in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. WMB was in 40 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 39 funds in the previous quarter. The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE: WMB) delivered a -3.11% return in the past 3 months.

In August 2021, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on WMB in another article. You can find more than 100 investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q3 page.

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