ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Small Cap Strategy” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Fed’s rate cut in September contributed to a shift from large-cap generative AI winners to a broader range of market leadership, particularly in small-cap stocks. However, the strategy underperformed its benchmark in the third quarter because weaknesses in the communication services and IT sectors outweighed the strong performances in health care and consumer discretionary. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
ClearBridge Small Cap Strategy highlighted stocks like The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) engages in the manufacturing and marketing of organic and natural products. The one-month return of The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) was -30.61%, and its shares lost 49.32% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 6, 2025, The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) stock closed at $5.60 per share with a market capitalization of $505.087 million.
ClearBridge Small Cap Strategy stated the following regarding The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“We also added a new position inThe Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN), in the consumer staples sector, which makes organic and natural products including infant formula, frozen desserts, plant-based beverages such as soy, rice and oat and frozen meat alternatives among others. Hain has seemingly been written off by the market, but new management has launched a company-wide turnaround effort that we believe will result in a more focused, profitable and growing company.”
Two hands crunching into a bag of the company’s organic vegetable chips.
The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 25 hedge fund portfolios held The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) at the end of the third quarter which was 23 in the previous quarter. In the fiscal first quarter of 2025, The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) reported an organic net sales decline of 5% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) 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 The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) and shared the list of best organic food and farming stocks to invest in. 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.