ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge All Cap Growth Strategy” first quarter 2023 investor letter, a copy of the same can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge All Cap Growth Strategy outperformed its Russell 3000 Growth Index benchmark in the first quarter. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains in eight of the nine sectors in which it was invested (out of 11 sectors total). The primary contributors were in the IT, communication services and consumer discretionary sectors. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2023.
In its Q1 2023 investor letter, ClearBridge All Cap Growth Strategy mentioned Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and explained its insights for the company. Founded in 1976, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a Cupertino, California-based multinational technology company with a $2.6 trillion market capitalization. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) delivered a 29.02% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 0.73%. The stock closed at $167.63 per share on April 19, 2023.
Here is what ClearBridge All Cap Growth Strategy has to say about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:
“Reminiscent of the FAANG period of market leadership in recent years, performance was concentrated in a handful of the largest growth stocks in the benchmark. For example, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Nvidia (NVDA) were responsible for close to half its total return (6.47%). Despite the Russell 3000 Growth Index losing nearly 29% in 2022 and underperforming its value counterpart by 2,100 bps, the benchmark remains extremely concentrated (Apple and Microsoft alone account for 22.4% of the index). Meanwhile, a tighter financing environment created by the Fed’s aggressive rate hike campaign, and worsened by the March failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (OTC:SBNY), hurt small cap companies the most (Exhibit 1) while health care stocks also trailed due to higher funding costs.
Despite limited mega cap exposure, the ClearBridge All Cap Growth Strategy held its own through the shift in market leadership. The combination of underweights to Apple and Microsoft, as well as the reclassification of payment providers PayPal (PYPL) and Visa (V) from IT to financials, caused the Strategy to finish the quarter close to 550 bps underweight IT. While diversification goals limit the Strategy from maintaining market weights in the index’s largest components, our positioning also reflects caution as we anticipate further multiple compression and earnings pressure among IT and shadow tech stocks due to exposure to economically-sensitive end markets.”
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Our calculations show that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) ranks 8th on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was in 135 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2022, compared to 140 funds in the previous quarter. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) delivered a 23.92% return in the past 3 months.
In April 2023, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in another article. You can find other investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2023 page.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
