First Eagle Investment Management recently released its Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download below. The First Eagle Fund of America posted a return of -23.72% for the quarter (without sales charge), underperforming its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index which returned -19.60% in the same quarter. You should check out First Eagle’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of the stock market crash. There weren’t a lot of funds who could deliver these kinds of returns without shorting the market or using aggressive put options.
In the said letter, First Eagle highlighted a few stocks and PPG Industries Inc (NYSE:PPG) is one of them. PPG Industries is a global supplier of paints, coatings, and specialty materials. Year-to-date, PPG Industries Inc (NYSE:PPG) stock lost 23.9% and on May 29th it had a closing price of $101.67. Here is what First Eagle said:
“Pittsburgh-based PPG Industries is a global leader in the manufacture and distribution of paints, coatings and specialty materials. PPG has a history of conservative balance sheet management and strong capital allocation and has generated positive free cash flow for more than 40 consecutive years. Early-2020 weakness in PPG’s share price, due primarily to its exposure to cyclical weakness in autos and industrial production, enabled us to add this business to the portfolio at what we considered an attractive price.”
In Q4 2019, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on PPG Industries Inc (NYSE:PPG) stock increased by about 17% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers seem to agree with PPG’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that PPG Industries Inc (NYSE:PPG) isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 185% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 109 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.
Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we believe electric vehicles and energy storage are set to become giant markets, and we want to take advantage of the declining lithium prices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. So we are checking out investment opportunities like this one. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. You can subscribe to our free enewsletter below to receive our stories in your inbox:
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
