ClearBridge Investments, a global equity manager, recently published first-quarter 2026 commentary for its “Large Cap Growth Strategy”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Following the outbreak of the Middle East conflict, the market experienced a significant decline in growth stocks, resulting in substantial losses. In the quarter, the S&P 500 Index fell 4.3% while the benchmark Russell 1000 Growth Index declined 9.8%, compared to the Russell 1000 Value Index’s 2.1% gain. In a volatile environment, the ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy outperformed its benchmark, benefiting from a shift away from technology and momentum stocks that led the market in 2025. The strategy saw a positive reversal in communication services and strong support from cyclical growth sectors like industrials, materials, and parts of IT. The Strategy repositioned its portfolio to increase exposure in semiconductors and biopharmaceuticals, and exited positions with turnaround delays to maintain discipline. In addition, please check the Strategy’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2026.
In its first-quarter 2026 investor letter, ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy highlighted stocks like Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM). Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is a cloud computing company that offers Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology that brings companies and customers together. On April 8, 2026, Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) closed at $175.93 per share. One-month return of Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) was -11.72%, and its shares lost 31.04% over the past 52 weeks. Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) has a market capitalization of $165.26 billion.
ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:
“The outbreak of war in the Middle East accelerated a selloff among growth stocks that started with software weakness and resulted in wide losses for the first quarter. Tax prep software maker Intuit, credit score provider Fair Isaac, cloud hyperscaler Oracle and enterprise software firm Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) were all impacted by a broad acceleration in the selloff among software companies feared to be disintermediated by AI. We completed an exit from Salesforce this quarter after trimming the position as part of our actions to reduce software exposure over the past year.
Since 2022, Salesforce has experienced slowing growth in its core business across its sales and service cloud segments and, more recently, marketing cloud. While Salesforce is executing on several product strategies to accelerate growth, we think these initiatives are not substantial enough to bend the curve on overall revenue growth. Product execution on innovation strategies has also been mixed. We believe Salesforce will continue to face rising competitive and model transition pressures as the software-as-a-service ecosystem moves from seat-based to usage-based pricing.”
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) ranks 28 on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026. According to our database, 115 hedge fund portfolios held Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) at the end of the fourth quarter, compared to 119 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) 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 Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) and shared the list of ridiculously cheap stocks to buy according to Wall Street analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2026 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.
