ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Large Cap Value Strategy” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US equities continued the journey as the growing number of “winners” concentrated in the market due to the excitement surrounding new weight loss medications and artificial intelligence, while the overall market was being affected by weakening economic indicators. The Russell 1000 Value Index underperformed its growth counterpart in the quarter, returning -2.17% to the Russell 1000 Growth Index’s 8.34% return. The strategy lagged behind its Russell 1000 Value Index benchmark during the quarter and had negative contributions from nine of the 11 sectors it was invested, on an absolute basis. Overall stock selection detracted from the performance, relatively. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
ClearBridge Large Cap Value Strategy highlighted stocks like XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) offers freight transportation services that operates in North American LTL and European Transportation segments. The one-month return of XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) was -0.52%, and its shares gained 77.45% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 5, 2024, XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) stock closed at $106.56 per share with a market capitalization of $12.396 billion.
ClearBridge Large Cap Value Strategy stated the following regarding XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Our industrials holdings weighed on relative performance as we are more exposed to transports such as “less than truckload” provider XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) and parcel delivery company United Parcel Service (UPS), which are struggling with weak volumes during the post-COVID freight recession. With industry volumes down to pre-COVID levels and strong pricing power in the LTL space in particular, we believe that the next upcycle will prove to be very strong for earnings. As a result, we added to XPO in the quarter while reducing our position in UPS on concerns that industry capacity remains excessive. Meanwhile, we have less exposure to electrical equipment stocks, which have been rewarded by views that they will benefit from the buildout of AI data centers.”
A convoy of freight trucks on a highway, reflecting industrial freight transportation.
XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 47 hedge fund portfolios held XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) at the end of the first quarter which was 39 in the previous quarter. XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) reported a 6% year-over-year revenue growth to $2 billion in the first quarter and increased adjusted EBITDA by 37% to $288 million. While we acknowledge the potential of XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) 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.
We discussed XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) in another article and shared the list of best logistics stocks to buy. XPO, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) positively contributed to the performance of ClearBridge Investments’ SMID Cap Growth Strategy in Q1 2024. 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.
