ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. U.S. stocks increased during a difficult quarter for diversified portfolios due to the market leadership remaining centered around a few mega-cap firms that were thought to be the major winners in the expanding AI industry. The benchmark Russell 3000 Index returned 3.22% in the quarter. The strategy underperformed the benchmark in the second quarter and had gains in four of 10 sectors in which it was invested, on an absolute basis. Overall stock selection detracted the most, mainly stock selection in the IT, consumer discretionary, health care, industrials, and real estate sectors. Please check the top 5 holdings of the strategy, to know its best pick in 2024.
ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy highlighted stocks like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a multinational software company that develops and supports software, services, devices, and solutions. The one-month return of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was 2.48%, and its shares gained 31.37% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 12, 2024, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock closed at $453.55 per share with a market capitalization of $3.371 trillion.
ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy stated the following regarding Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“The Strategy trailed the Russell 3000 Index benchmark largely due to our diversified positioning, although we maintain a considerable portfolio allocation to large cap AI-related companies. These positions were indeed among our top contributors in the quarter, such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). The company is finding more ways to deploy AI for sustainability objectives such as its ability to better measure, predict and optimize complex systems, which can help its partner communities reduce wildfire risk.”
A development team working together to create the next version of Windows.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in second position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 293 hedge fund portfolios held Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) at the end of the first quarter which was 302 in the previous quarter. It was a record quarter for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), driven by continued strength in the Microsoft Cloud. The company reported $61.9 billion in revenues in the first quarter, up 17% year over year. While we acknowledge the potential of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) 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 Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and shared the best AI value stocks that are ‘money machines’ according to NYU’s Aswath Damodaran. In the first quarter of 2024, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) significantly contributed to Aristotle Capital Value Equity Strategy’s performance. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
