Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The final quarter of 2023 saw a continuous fluctuation between recessionary fears and soft-landing optimism. In the fourth quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTMX returned 8.86%, Advisor Class fund APDMX posted a return of 8.93%, and Institutional Class fund APHMX returned 8.96%, compared to a 14.55% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. The portfolio generated a positive absolute return in Q4 but underperformed the Russell Midcap Growth Index due to poor security selection, particularly in health care and information technology. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund featured stocks like Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) in the Q4 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) is a data, analytics, and technology company. On March 6, 2024, Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) stock closed at $264.50 per share. One-month return of Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) was 4.94%, and its shares gained 34.13% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) has a market capitalization of $32.786 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“We initiated new GardenSM positions in Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX), Celsius and Xylem during the quarter. Equifax is the largest provider of income and employment in the US (Workforce Solutions), one of the three large global credit bureaus. Within its credit business, we believe mortgage volumes likely troughed in 2023 as 30-year fixed mortgage rates reached 20-year highs, and going forward we expect either rates will fall, or consumers will get used to the new normal. In either case, home purchase volumes should recover. Meanwhile, the Workforce Solutions business has meaningful growth opportunities, including serving public sector clients seeking to verify eligibility for public benefits. We expect steady growth in Workforce Solutions plus a multiyear recovery in mortgage-related revenues to drive significant margin expansion as Equifax leverages its large investments in data and systems.”
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Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. At the end of the fourth quarter, Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) was held by 32 hedge fund portfolios, up from 29 in the previous quarter, according to our database.
We discussed Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) in another article and shared the list of best performing dividend stocks to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.