ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy” first quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The strategy outperformed its benchmark, the Russell 1000 Value Index, in the first quarter. The outperformance of the strategy in the quarter was driven by strong stock selection in the communication services and industrials sectors which overcame weakness in the financials sector. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy highlighted stocks like CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) is a health services provider that operates through Health Care Benefits, Pharmacy Services, and Retail/LTC segments. On July 3, 2023, CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) stock closed at $69.77 per share. One-month return of CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) was -1.05%, and its shares lost 24.60% of their value over the last 52 weeks. CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) has a market capitalization of $89.447 billion.
ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy made the following comment about CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) in its first quarter 2023 investor letter:
“At the same time, we exited health insurance company Cigna, whose strong outperformance over the last year has resulted in shares trading at a significant premium relative to competitor CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS). Additionally, we view CVS Health’s underperformance as driven by temporary issues and believe it has a good likelihood of succeeding in its improvement initiatives following upgrades to the management team and its acquisition of Oak Street Health. As a result, we elected to swap our position in Cigna into CVS Health to capitalize on the valuation gap while maintaining similar exposure within the sector.”
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CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 77 hedge fund portfolios held CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) at the end of first quarter 2023 which was 70 in the previous quarter.
We discussed CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS) in another article and shared the list of beaten down stocks billionaires are loading up on. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2023 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.
