Artisan International Took Profits in Schlumberger (SLB), Here’s Why

Artisan Partners, a high value-added investment management firm, published its ‘Artisan International Value Fund’ first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of 8.35% was recorded by its Investor Class: ARTKX, 8.36% by its Advisor Class: APDKX, and 8.40% by its Institutional Class: APHKX for the fourth quarter of 2020, all outperforming the MSCI EAFE Index that delivered a 3.48% return and the MSCI All Country World ex USA Index that was up by 3.49% for the same period. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Artisan International Value Fund, in its Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned Schlumberger Limited (NYSE: SLB), and shared their insights on the company. Schlumberger Limited is a Houston, Texas-based oilfield services company that currently has a $47.6 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, SLB delivered a 41.10% return, extending its 12-month gains to 129.26%. As of May 17, 2021, the stock closed at $34.05 per share.

Here is what Artisan International Value Fund has to say about Schlumberger Limited in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

Schlumberger is the world’s largest oil services company. Most energy companies rallied as crude oil prices increased significantly through the first quarter. Similar to ING, when a sector as a whole rallies, the highest quality companies typically rally first. Schlumberger’s shares rose 35% during the quarter following a 40% gain in Q4 2020. The share price hit our estimate of intrinsic value, and we have sold the shares.”

Top Energy Dividend Stocks

Pixabay/Public Domain

Our calculations show that Schlumberger Limited (NYSE: SLB) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Schlumberger Limited was in 50 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 53 funds in the third quarter. SLB delivered a 27.00% return in the past 3 months.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best innovative stocks to buy to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.