Is Bancolombia S.A. (CIB) Still A Good Investment Choice?

Harding Loevner, an investment management firm, published its “Emerging Markets Equity Fund” first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of 1.57% was recorded by the fund for the Q1 of 2021, behind the 2.34% return of the MSCI EM Index. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Harding Loevner, in its Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned Bancolombia S.A. (NYSE: CIB), and shared their insights on the company. Bancolombia S.A. is a Medellín, Colombia-based financial services company that currently has a $7.3 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, CIB delivered a -23.57% return, while its 12-month gains are up by 22.84%. As of May 07, 2021, the stock closed at $30.71 per share.

Here is what Harding Loevner has to say about Bancolombia S.A. in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

“Poor returns in Financials, particularly across our Latin American holdings, were the primary drag on relative returns. In Colombia, Bancolombia’s stock suffered after the bank reported net income declined over 90% last year with higher pandemic-related loan provisions increasing credit costs, particularly in its Panama operations. Still, Bancolombia’s finances remain robust and it should see a gradual recovery in asset quality, helped by an accelerated digital transformation, which should help profitability.”

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Our calculations show that Bancolombia S.A. (NYSE: CIB) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Bancolombia S.A. was in 4 hedge fund portfolios compared to 3 funds in the third quarter. CIB delivered a -15.72% 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.