Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter for “Artisan Mid Cap Fund”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Fund seeks to invest in companies that possess franchise characteristics, with strong earnings trajectories, and are trading at a discount to the estimated private market value. US equities ended a record year with robust fourth-quarter gains. The Fund’s Investor Class, ARTMX, delivered -0.44%, the Advisor Class, APDMX, delivered -0.37%, and the Institutional Class, APHMX, delivered -0.35% in the fourth quarter compared to -3.70% for the Russell Midcap® Growth Index. Continued strength in information technology (IT) and health care contributed to the performance during the quarter. Please review the Fund’s top five holdings to gain insights into their key selections for 2025.
In its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter, Artisan Mid Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT). Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is an analytical workflow solutions provider specializing in liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (MS) technology systems and support products. On February 23, 2026, Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) stock closed at $327.78 per share. One-month return of Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) was -15.97%, and its shares lost 13.93% over the past 52 weeks. Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) has a market capitalization of $32.15 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) in its fourth quarter 2025 investor letter:
We also added to ServiceTitan, MongoDB and Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) during the quarter. Waters is a leading provider of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry instruments for pharmaceutical and industrial applications. Its franchise position in pharmaceutical quality assurance testing drives strong recurring revenue (consumables and software to enable the instrument installed base). We expect the company to benefit from a rebound in commercial and late-stage clinical pharma demand, an instrument replacement cycle and growing exposure to biologic medicines. We added to the position after strong quarterly results, as we believe the share price did not reflect improving biologics momentum, emerging revenue synergies and favorable regulatory trends.
Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. According to our database, 57 hedge fund portfolios held Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) at the end of the fourth quarter, up from 56 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) and shared a bullish thesis on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.
