ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Sustainability Leaders Strategy” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy underperformed its Russell 3000 Index benchmark during the first quarter. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains in five of 10 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 Ball Corporation (NYSE: BLL), and shared their insights on the company. Ball Corporation is a Broomfield, Colorado-based aerospace company that currently has a $27 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, BLL delivered a -11.4% return, while its 12-month gains are up by 11.65%. As of June 04, 2021, the stock closed at $82.54 per share.
Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about Ball Corporation in its Q1 2021 investor letter:
“Aluminum beverage and food container manufacturer Ball Corp, meanwhile, delivered fourth-quarter operating income slightly lower than consensus, though this was mainly attributable to higher startup costs for large new facilities coming online in North America. These investments and additional capacity projects will contribute to strong volume growth globally, however. Aluminum cans are infinitely recyclable and offer the best replacement product for single-use plastic beverage containers, in our view. They are more likely to be recycled than single-use plastic and are more energy efficient in production as well.”
Our calculations show that Ball Corporation (NYSE: BLL) 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, Ball Corporation was in 38 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 44 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. BLL delivered a 0.40% return in the past 3 months.
The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 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. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.