ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Despite strong performance from healthcare holdings, the Strategy lagged its benchmark, the Russell 2000 Value Index, due to headwinds in the materials and industrial sectors. While investors continued to focus on a limited number of AI beneficiaries and bitcoin plays, the rest of the market was hit by the economic slowdown and a higher-for-longer interest rate expectation. This made the second quarter particularly difficult to navigate for small-cap stocks. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy highlighted stocks like Unum Group (NYSE:UNM), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Unum Group (NYSE:UNM) offers financial protection benefit solutions that operates through Unum US, Unum International, Colonial Life, and Closed Block segment. The one-month return of Unum Group (NYSE:UNM) was 6.42%, and its shares gained 17.94% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 23, 2024, Unum Group (NYSE:UNM) stock closed at $58.24 per share with a market capitalization of $10.833 billion.
ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy stated the following regarding Unum Group (NYSE:UNM) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Meanwhile, we exited our position in Unum Group (NYSE:UNM), in the financials sector, which provides financials insurance products including long- and short-term disability, group life and accidental death insurance as well as group pension products. With the company’s market cap reaching the upper bounds of the small cap category and its share price nearing our target valuation, we elected to exit the position in favor of other opportunities with greater return potential.”
Close up of a person’s hand signing a life insurance policy.
Unum Group (NYSE:UNM) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 27 hedge fund portfolios held Unum Group (NYSE:UNM) at the end of the second quarter which was 26 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Unum Group (NYSE:UNM) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2024 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.