What Makes Stifel Financial Corp. (SF) a Well-Suited Investment in the Current Environment?

Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Mid Cap Strategy” first-quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The overweight exposure to the financials sector led the strategy to underperform the Russell Midcap Index in the quarter while industrials and select energy holdings contributed to the relative performance. The strategy returned -2.00% compared to the Russell Midcap Index’s 4.06% return. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the strategy to know its best picks in 2023.

Diamond Hill Mid Cap Strategy highlighted stocks like Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) is a financial services and bank holding company. On May 16, 2023, Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) stock closed at $57.56 per share. One-month return of Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) was -7.19%, and its shares lost 4.32% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) has a market capitalization of $6.109 billion.

Diamond Hill Mid Cap Strategy made the following comment about Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:

“As is often the case, market volatility offers unique opportunities to shift the portfolio, capitalizing on valuations to introduce new holdings which we believe will offer attractive long-term returns. Accordingly, we capitalized on Q1’s choppiness to initiate positions in Arrow Electronics, Allstate, Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) and Fidelity National Information Services.

Stifel Financial provides wealth management and institutional brokerage and investment banking services. In contrast to community banks, Stifel has relatively low exposure to lending risk, and its diversified business model is relatively well-suited to the current environment. Further, Stifel is well-positioned to benefit from long-term secular growth trends in wealth management. The wealth management addressable market in the US is meaningful, and with its 25 years’ experience in wealth management and the platform necessary to allow it to scale its business — including Stifel Bank — we anticipate the company will continue growing its advisor count as assets under management increase, which should in turn drive attractive revenue and earnings growth.”

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Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 26 hedge fund portfolios held Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 26 in the previous quarter.

We discussed Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) in another article and shared the list of stocks to buy for interest rate hikes. 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.