Polen Capital, an investment management company, released its “Polen Focus Growth Strategy” fourth-quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund returned -0.28% net in the fourth quarter compared to a 2.20% return for the Russell 1000 Growth Index and a 7.41% return for the S&P 500 Index. In 2022, the fund returned -38.02% net compared to -29.14% and -18.22% returns for the Russell and the S&P 500 Indexes, respectively. Inflation, the Fed’s interest rate hikes, and revenue and earnings slowdowns of the fund’s holding companies led the fund to underperform in the quarter and the year. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2022.
Polen Capital highlighted stocks like NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) in the fourth quarter investor letter. Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) is a global company that designs, manufactures, and markets athletic shoe apparel, equipment, and accessories. On January 18, 2023, NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) stock closed at $126.43 per share. One-month return of NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) was 8.33%, and its shares lost 11.42% of their value over the last 52 weeks. NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) has a market capitalization of $196.037 billion.
Polen Capital made the following comment about NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) in its Q4 2022 investor letter:
“Adobe and NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) were solid performers in the quarter as some of the doom and gloom narratives around these companies have waned as they both saw strong recent business results. Nike has been dealing with weak demand in China (mostly due to rolling COVID lockdowns) but also a bloated inventory position in North American apparel as well. Supply chain issues caused delays in last year’s inventory shipments. As those were overcome, newer orders came in earlier than expected causing the spike in inventory. On its most recent earnings call, it became clear to us that this inventory spike is a temporary supply issue and narrowly focused in apparel. Demand for Nike products is strong, especially for footwear where nearly every geography grew over 30% in constant currencies in the past quarter. The company expects the inventory issue to be largely behind it in the next two to three quarters and is already seeing inventory levels decline sequentially.”
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NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) is not on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Per our database, 70 hedge fund portfolios held NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) at the end of the third quarter, and 72 in the previous quarter.
We discussed NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) in another article and shared the Mawer Investment Management’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2022 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
