Carillon Tower Advisers, an investment management company, released its “Carillon Eagle Growth & Income Fund” first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The S&P 500 Index ended Q1 down 4.3%, marking a turbulent start to 2025. The volatility that began in February was triggered by factors including policy uncertainties, economic deceleration, and AI investment sustainability concerns. The market’s first intra-quarter drawdown exceeded 10% in 28 months. Adding to the uncertainty, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield declined from 4.8% to 4.25%, leading to an equity market rotation favoring defensive sectors, quality stocks, and dividend-yielding equities over growth and momentum-driven investments, with top-performing sectors like energy, healthcare, and consumer staples. Moreover, the quarter saw market participation broaden, with index leadership shifting from mega-cap technology companies to a more diverse base of stocks, as evidenced by the S&P 500® Equal Weight Index’s outperformance. Additionally, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2025.
In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Carillon Eagle Growth & Income Fund highlighted stocks such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a multinational software company that develops and supports software, services, devices, and solutions. The one-month return of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was 25.09%, and its shares gained 6.95% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 19, 2025, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock closed at $458.87 per share with a market capitalization of $3.411 trillion.
Carillon Eagle Growth & Income Fund stated the following regarding Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was also weak due to concerns that the Chinese DeepSeek large language AI model would create increased competition for OpenAI, in which Microsoft owns a significant stake. Additionally, Microsoft was left out of the joint venture financing the multi-national Stargate Project, though the company claims this was its choice.”
A development team working together to create the next version of Windows.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in second position our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 317 hedge fund portfolios held Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 279 in the third quarter. In the fiscal third quarter of 2025, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported $70.1 billion in revenues, up 13% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the undervalued AI stock set for massive gains.
In another article, we covered Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and shared the list of AI stocks surging on news and analyst ratings. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 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.
