Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter for “Artisan Value Fund”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Fund seeks to invest in undervalued companies with strong financial condition and attractive business economics. US equities ended a record year with robust fourth-quarter gains. AI remains the main theme of the market, and large-cap stocks led the rally in the fourth quarter. Against this backdrop, the portfolio outperformed the Russell 1000® Value Index in Q4 and returned 4.60% compared to 3.81% for the Index. In 2025, it returned 14.28% vs. 15.91% for the index. Over three, five, and ten years, the portfolio outperformed the index, reflecting its effective investment discipline. Please review the Fund’s top five holdings to gain insights into their key selections for 2025.
In its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter, Artisan Value Fund highlighted stocks like Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) as one of its leading contributors. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is a leading multinational healthcare company that offers human health pharmaceutical for various areas. On March 13, 2026, Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) stock closed at $115.61 per share. One-month return of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) was -5.48%, and its shares gained 21.07% over the past 52 weeks. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) has a market capitalization of $285.833 billion.
Artisan Value Fund stated the following regarding Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) in its fourth quarter 2025 investor letter:
“Our top three individual contributors, each returning 20%-plus, were Lam Research, Alphabet and Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK). Shares of Merck, a health care solutions company, soared in November when healthcare stocks surged amid a rotation to cheaper laggards. The stock had gotten short shrift over the past year due to concerns it doesn’t have enough in the pipeline to offset blockbuster oncology drug Keytruda coming off patent in 2028. Merck has also garnered little respect for the multitude of deals it has completed over the past five years. Instead, the market has focused on the near-term headwinds in Gardasil, a vaccine for human papillomarivus (HPV). A narrative has formed that the company’s innovation engine is broken, and Merck is unlikely to navigate its way out of an eventual earnings headwind. Though recent Gardasil setbacks have weighed on sentiment, the overarching issue for shareholders remains the success of the company’s late-stage pipeline. Merck seems to be getting little credit from investors for the dozens of programs it has in clinical development, despite having several solid and large new product opportunities. Additionally, the company’s strong balance sheet and robust free cash flow provide it multiple options for future partnerships and acquisitions, besides return of capital to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases.”
Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is not on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026. According to our database, 100 hedge fund portfolios held Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) at the end of the fourth quarter, up from 92 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) 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 Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) and shared a list of top picks from Goldman Sachs healthcare stocks. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.
