ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Select Strategy” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge Select Strategy slightly underperformed its Russell 3000 Index benchmark in the first quarter. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains across nine of the 10 sectors in which it was invested during the quarter (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 Performance Food Group Company (NYSE: PFGC), and shared their insights on the company. Performance Food Group Company is a Richmond, Virginia-based food distributor and supplier that currently has a $6.5 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, PFGC delivered a 3.55% return, extending its 12-month gains to 50.49%. As of June 04, 2021, the stock closed at $49.30 per share.
Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about Performance Food Group Company in its Q1 2021 investor letter:
“We are encouraged that the active repositioning we have undertaken over the last year has provided enough balance for the Strategy to perform well in both the higher growth of 2020 as well as the cyclical-oriented market we are experiencing today. Some of our best contributors in the latest quarter were companies we bought or materially added to from the middle of the second quarter through the third quarter such as Performance Food Group.”
Our calculations show that Performance Food Group Company (NYSE: PFGC) 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, Performance Food Group Company was in 18 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 22 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. PFGC delivered a -11.85% 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.
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. We go through lists like the 10 best hydrogen fuel cell stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.