Here’s Why ClearBridge Sold its CVS Health (CVS) Position

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 CVS Health Corporation (NYSE: CVS), and shared their insights on the company. CVS Health Corporation is a Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based healthcare company that currently has a $112.2 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, CVS delivered a 25.04% return, while its 12-month gains are up by 23.11%. As of June 07, 2021, the stock closed at $86.33 per share.

Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about CVS Health Corporation in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

“Our underweights in health care and staples contributed to relative performance during the period. As we continue to focus
the portfolio on high-conviction ideas, we sold CVS in the first quarter, in the health care sector.”

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Our calculations show that CVS Health Corporation (NYSE: CVS) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, CVS Health Corporation was in 51 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 54 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. CVS delivered a 19.61% 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.