American Express Company (AXP) Fell in Q1 Due to Cautious 2025 Guidance

Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Select Equity Fund” first-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The US market was one of the world’s worst-performing markets in Q1. Against this backdrop, the fund’s Investor Class ARTNX, Advisor Class APDNX, and Institutional Class APHNX returned 5.79%, 5.85%, and 5.82%, respectively, in the first quarter, compared to a -4.27% return for the S&P 500 Index. 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 Select Equity Fund highlighted stocks such as American Express Company (NYSE:AXP). American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) operates as an integrated payments company. The one-month return of American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) was 4.02%, and its shares gained 27.20% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On June 5, 2025, American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) stock closed at $295.96 per share, with a market capitalization of $207.346 billion.

Artisan Select Equity Fund stated the following regarding American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

“American Express Company’s (NYSE:AXP) share price declined 9%. Recently reported results were good, although 2025 guidance was cautious (appropriately so, in our view), and the market didn’t like that. We find the guidance game to be a bit ridiculous. Nobody knows what is going to happen over any time period, and share price reactions often reflect investors’ positioning based on what they think everyone else thinks is going to happen. At any rate, American Express’ share price performance had been very strong heading into this quarter, and a bit of a pullback was not inappropriate. If we go into a recession, its shares will likely decline further. We have owned the stock since 2020 and expect to do so for a long time into the future. It’s a fantastic business with good growth prospects. We have no idea what will happen in the next quarter or year.”

American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 75 hedge fund portfolios held American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) at the end of the first quarter, which was 71 in the previous quarter. In Q1 2025, American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) generated $17 billion in revenue, representing an 8% increase year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) 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 American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) and shared the list of best and worst Dow stocks. 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.