Here’s Why ClearBridge Reduced its Apple (AAPL) Stake

ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Large Cap Value Strategy” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge Large Cap Value Strategy underperformed its Russell 1000 Value Index benchmark during the first quarter. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains in 10 of 11 sectors in which it was invested for the quarter. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

ClearBridge Investments, in its Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), and shared their insights on the company. Apple Inc. is a Cupertino, California-based technology company that currently has a $2.1 trillion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, AAPL delivered a -4.48% return, while its 12-month gains are up by 47.38%. As of June 08, 2021, the stock closed at $126.74 per share.

Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about Apple Inc. in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

“As we actively manage holdings and position sizes, we look to regularly recycle capital into more compelling opportunities. Maintaining our valuation discipline, we sharply reduced our position in Apple, whose shares more than doubled following our initial purchase in mid-2019 with an earnings multiple rising from the low-to-mid teens to nearly 30x.”

Apple

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Our calculations show that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) ranks 12th in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, Apple Inc. was in 127 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 146 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. AAPL delivered a 4.67% 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.

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