Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Value Fund” first quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the first quarter, the fund outperformed the Russell 1000 Value Index. Its Investor Class fund ARTLX returned 7.88%, Advisor Class fund APDLX posted a return of 7.93%, and Institutional Class fund APHLX returned 8.02% in the quarter, compared to a 1.01% return for the Russell 1000 Value Index. In Q1, sector allocation and stock selection turned out to be positive. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Artisan Value Fund highlighted stocks like FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) offers transportation, e-commerce, and business services. On May 23, 2023, FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) stock closed at $226.64 per share. One-month return of FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) was 1.74%, and its shares gained 10.93% of their value over the last 52 weeks. FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) has a market capitalization of $56.966 billion.
Artisan Value Fund made the following comment about FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:
“After bottoming in September 2022 at less than 8X our estimate of normalized earnings, shares of FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX), a global shipping and logistics firm, have rallied strongly over the past six months. The demand environment remains challenging, particularly in the Express segment due to lower volumes in Asia and Europe. A key question remains how much the demand slowdown is idiosyncratic due to the post-pandemic reopening of the international economy and therefore less likely to repeat and how much is due to a cyclical slowdown. Due to the substantial pessimism already priced into shares, it hasn’t taken much for shares to rise soundly. Better-than-expected operating results and progress on cost-cutting initiatives, including additional headcount reductions, to offset cost pressures were well-received. While operating results can be choppy, FedEx’s longer term business economics are highly favorable given the global shipping industry’s consolidated structure and massive barriers to entry that afford operators with pricing power to counter cost inflation and earn respectable returns on capital over the business cycle.”
FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. AAs per our database, 55 hedge fund portfolios held FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) at the end of first quarter 2023 which was 48 in the previous quarter.
We discussed FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) in another article and shared top stock picks in Bill Gates’ most recent portfolio. 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.