Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Value Fund” first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The growth stock trend that had driven US stocks up since late 2022 collapsed in Q1. The fund’s Investor Class ARTLX, Advisor Class APDLX, and Institutional Class APHLX returned 2.23%, 2.24%, and 2.31%, respectively, in the first quarter compared to a 2.14% return for the Russell 1000® Value Index. The relative performance was positively influenced by its sector allocation, which included lower-than-benchmark weightings in information technology and industrials, as well as a higher allocation in consumer staples. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the strategy to know its best picks in 2025.
In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Artisan Value Fund highlighted stocks such as Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the parent company of Google, offers various platforms and services operating through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The one-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was 4.31%, and its shares lost 0.57% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 29, 2025, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock closed at $172.96 per share, with a market capitalization of $2.091 trillion.
Artisan Value Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“Among our biggest detractors were PayPal Holdings, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Merck. Alphabet fell along with other Magnificent Seven stocks following the DeepSeek news, as investors took profits in many of the prior year’s winners. Alphabet continues to perform well, with total revenue up 12% year over year in its most recent quarter, led by growth in Cloud (+30%). However, the company’s capital expenditures guidance for 2025 of $ 75 billion was more than Wall Street was expecting. Alphabet, like other US hyperscalers, is spending huge sums of capex to build out data center capacity to position itself for the large opportunity in AI, and investors want to be sure that these investments will yield good returns. Though the valuations of the Magnificent Seven and other mega-cap technology names are a common discussion point, Alphabet’s valuation had remained relatively stable throughout 2023 and 2024 as its share price gains were powered by underlying earnings growth. Moreover, Alphabet, along with Meta Platforms, the two Magnificent Seven stocks we hold, has been the cheapest of this group. Though valuations remained reasonable, we trimmed our positions in Alphabet and Meta in early January to take advantage of better valuation opportunities. At the end of March, Alphabet sold for just 17X 2025 expected earnings, which is highly attractive, in our view, given the company’s dominant industry positions, cash flow generation and ability to compound value over time.”
A user’s hands typing a search query into a Google Search box, emphasizing the company’s search capabilities.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in 7th position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 164 hedge fund portfolios held Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of the first quarter which was 174 in the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2025, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) achieved a revenue of $90.2 billion, representing an increase of 12% from Q1 2024. While we acknowledge the potential of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) 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 undervalued AI stock set for massive gains.
In another article, we covered Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and shared the latest analyst views on Coatue’s favorite AI stocks. Loomis Sayles Global Growth Fund also commented on Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q1 2025 investor letter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 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.
