Should You Still Consider Buying Sempra Energy (SRE) Shares?

ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “Large Cap Value Strategy” fourth quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The ClearBridge Large Cap Value Strategy outperformed its Russell 1000 Value Index benchmark during the fourth quarter. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains in 10 of 11 sectors in which it was invested for the quarter. The strongest contributions came from the IT, health care, industrials, and materials sectors. The communication services sector was the sole detractor. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.

ClearBridge Investments Large Cap Value Strategy, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Sempra (NYSE:SRE) and discussed its stance on the firm. Founded in 1998, Sempra (NYSE:SRE) is a San Diego, California-based energy infrastructure company with a $53.1 billion market capitalization, and is currently spearheaded by its CEO, Jeffrey W. Martin. Sempra (NYSE:SRE) delivered a 27.25% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 26.42%. The stock closed at $168.33 per share on April 06, 2022.

Here is what ClearBridge Investments Large Cap Value Strategy has to say about Sempra (NYSE:SRE) in its Q4 2021 investor letter:

“Defensive sectors such as utilities underperformed the broader market, with our California-based utilities, Sempra Energy generating modestly below-sector returns on continuing wildfire concerns, despite significantly improved financial exposure due to the 2019 legislation AB 1054. The legislation was a major positive step toward reducing wildfire risk to California public utilities, which we expect to be reflected in improved valuations over time.”

Suwin/Shutterstock.com

Our calculations show that Sempra (NYSE:SRE) failed to obtain a mark on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Sempra (NYSE:SRE) was in 31 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to 23 funds in the previous quarter. Sempra (NYSE:SRE) delivered a 23.63% return in the past 3 months.

In January 2022, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on Sempra (NYSE:SRE) in another article. You can find other letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q4 page.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.