ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “SMID Cap Growth Strategy” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge SMID Cap Growth Strategy outperformed in the first quarter as their preference for sturdy fundamentals and value-creating management teams provided ballast amid rising speculation in newly public risk assets favored on online message boards. 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 APi Group Corporation (NYSE: APG), and shared their insights on the company. APi Group Corporation is a New Brighton, Minnesota-based safety, specialty, and industrial services provider that currently has a $4.3 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, APG delivered an 18.40% return, extending its 12-month gains to 76.73%. As of June 01, 2021, the stock closed at $21.49 per share.
Here is what ClearBridge Investments has to say about APi Group Corporation in its Q1 2021 investor letter:
“APi Group, in the industrials sector, was our most significant new addition. APi helps office and industrial buildings ensure their safety and fire alarm systems are operating properly, a largely recurring business where the company has an opportunity to grow market share. Also in industrials, Array Technologies makes mechanical tracking systems platforms for industrial grade solar installations that pivot as the direction of the sun changes to capture the most solar exposure. The company, run by a team with a keen sense of where to offer software around its physical platform, has seen mostly U.S. market share gains thus far and will begin to ramp up its international business this year.”
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Our calculations show that APi Group Corporation (NYSE: APG) 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, APi Group Corporation was in 33 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 31 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. APG delivered a 9.87% 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.
