ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Mid Cap Growth Strategy” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Beginning in July, a significant shift away from large caps fueled a rebound that propelled the Russell Midcap Index 9.21% higher outperforming the large cap Russell 1000 Index’s 6.08% gain. In the third quarter, the Strategy beat its benchmark driven by contributions from its investments in the IT and healthcare sectors. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
ClearBridge Mid Cap Growth Strategy highlighted stocks like West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) designs, manufactures and sells containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products. The one-month return of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) was -1.65%, and its shares lost 6.38% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On December 9, 2024, West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) stock closed at $322.16 per share with a market capitalization of $23.332 billion.
ClearBridge Mid Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“On the elimination side, we exited our position in West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST), which manufacturers containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and health care products. The company has also struggled amid broader customer destocking trends and, with recent research suggesting that customer inventory levels may be higher than previously expected, we have become less confident in the timing of a potential turnaround.”
A closeup of multiple drug containment systems in an array of colors.
West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 31 hedge fund portfolios held West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) at the end of the third quarter which was 37 in the previous quarter. West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.’s (NYSE:WST) third quarter net sales were $746.9 million, representing an organic sales decline of 0.5%. While we acknowledge the potential of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we discussed West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) and shared the list of worst performing healthcare stocks in 2024. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2024 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.