Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Value Fund” third-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTQX returned 0.97%, Advisor Class fund APDQX posted a return of 0.98%, and Institutional Class fund APHQX returned 0.97%, compared to a 6.18% return for the Russell Midcap Value Index. Equity markets continued their rally in the third quarter as investors overlooked tariff concerns, driven by strong corporate earnings, rising AI capital expenditures, and hopes for economic support from US fiscal policy and lower interest rates. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Artisan Mid Cap Value Fund highlighted stocks such as Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC). Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) is a healthcare enterprise that offers services to under-insured and uninsured families and commercial organizations. The one-month return of Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) was 10.30%, and its shares lost 33.35% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 2, 2026, Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) stock closed at $41.78 per share, with a market capitalization of $20.536 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Value Fund stated the following regarding Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:
“In Q3, the portfolio’s stock selection was broadly negative across sectors, reflective of the broader performance headwinds discussed earlier, but our biggest source of underperformance was the health care sector, which had three of our four biggest detractors. These included Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC), Align Technology and Baxter International. Health care has been one of the worst-performing sectors over the past year as policy uncertainty has caused it to be shunned. Shares of managed care organization Centene plunged after the company withdrew its 2025 guidance driven by higher-than-expected market acuity (i.e., risk adjustments) on the ACA (Affordable Care Act) marketplaces and elevated Medicaid cost trends. These pressures are in addition to the declining trend in Medicaid enrollment that had already been weighing on the business. During the pandemic, states were prohibited from disenrolling people from Medicaid, but since April 2023 when this policy ended, states have resumed full eligibility redeterminations, causing millions of people to lose coverage. Medicaid enrollment will likely see an additional headwind when new work requirements signed into law from the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) take effect on January 1, 2027. Centene and other health insurers can reprice risk annually, which can enable their business economics to recover over time; however, the multitude of headwinds Centene is facing, including the imminent changes from the BBB, will surely delay such a recovery. Given these concerns and better opportunities elsewhere, we chose to exit our position.”
Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 72 hedge fund portfolios held Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) at the end of the third quarter, which was 59 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) and shared Hotchkis & Wiley Mid-Cap Value Fund’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.
