ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Beginning in July, a significant shift away from large caps fueled a rebound and helped the Russell Midcap Index beat its peers with larger sizes. The Russell Midcap Index returned 9.21% in the quarter compared to a 6.08% gain of the large-cap Russell 1000 Index. During the quarter, the strategy underperformed its Russell Midcap Index. Detractors in the industrial and communication services sectors outweighed positive contributions from holdings in IT and healthcare. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy highlighted stocks like Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) offers additives and specialty ingredients that operates through Life Sciences, Personal Care, Specialty Additives, and Intermediates segments. The one-month return of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) was -0.76%, and its shares gained 6.78% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 8, 2024, Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) stock closed at $83.77 per share with a market capitalization of $4.091 billion.
ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy stated the following regarding Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Several of our detractors came from the industrials and materials sectors, which have been impacted by customer destocking trends and, subsequently, declines in sales volumes. While we had hoped that the second half of 2024 would see the beginnings of a recovery, it appears that it will take longer than anticipated. Such was the case for two of our largest detractors: Atkore, in the industrials sector, and Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH), in the materials sector. Ashland, which provides additives and specialty ingredients through business lines targeted to the life sciences, personal care and household as well as specialty and solvents industries, has also struggled with lower orders as demand levels have continued to slide below what we would expect for the middle of their business cycle. As a result, both companies faced tough year-over-year comparables and quarterly earnings that fell short of market expectations. Ultimately, while we believe that Ashland remains a compelling investment opportunity, the repeated pushback of an expected recovery has rendered Atkore’s trajectory more opaque and we elected to sell the position in favor of other opportunities with greater transparency.”
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Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 25 hedge fund portfolios held Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) at the end of the second quarter which was 25 in the previous quarter. The fiscal third quarter sales were roughly in line with prior year at $544 million. While we acknowledge the potential of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) 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 another article, we discussed Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) and shared Leon Cooperman’s stock portfolio and top picks. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.