Smead Capital Management, an investment management company, released its Smead Value Fund second quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund returned -13.33% compared to the S&P 500 Index which lost 16.10% and the Russell 1000 Value Index posted a loss of 12.21%. The bear market affected the performance of the fund in the second quarter and the fund believes that it will act as a blessing for the fund’s long-term performance. Please check the top five holdings of the fund to know more about its best picks in 2022.
In the letter, Smead Capital Management discussed stocks like Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK). It is one of the fund’s best-performing stocks. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is a healthcare company, headquartered in Kenilworth, New Jersey, and has a market capitalization of $225.943 billion. The stock of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) closed at $89.19 per share on August 10, 2022. One-month return of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) was -5.00%, and its 12-month return jumped to 17.29%.
Here’s how Smead Capital Management mentioned Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) in the Q2, 2022 investor letter:
“For the quarter, our best-performing stocks included Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK). Despite a steep sell-off in June in the oil and gas stocks, two of our oil stocks made the quarterly list. Merck’s defensive characteristics and good news on earnings/growth didn’t shock us. We argued one year ago that Merck was historically cheap relative to the indexes as compared to the last 20 years.”
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Although, Smead Capital Management invested in Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), it is not on the list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) was held by 84 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first quarter, which was 80 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) in another article and shared Sound Shore Fund’s views about the company. You can check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2022 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other prominent investors.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.