ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy Sold Ashland (ASH) in Q1 Amid Sluggish End Markets

1 week ago 6

Soumya Eswaran

Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 7:07 AM 2 min read

ClearBridge Investments, an concern absorption company, released its “ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy” archetypal 4th 2025 capitalist letter. A transcript of the missive tin beryllium downloaded here. Though initially positive, stories connected imaginable tariffs, planetary commercialized conflict, and a rotation retired of AI-related tech firms nonstop equities little successful the archetypal quarter. In this environment, the ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy underperformed the benchmark, Russell Midcap Index successful the quarter, owed to idiosyncratic headwinds, strengthened by the marketplace volatility; enactment unit connected respective of strategy’s exertion and concern holdings. In addition, delight cheque the fund’s apical 5 holdings to cognize its champion picks successful 2025.

In its archetypal 4th 2025 capitalist letter, ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy emphasized stocks specified arsenic Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH). Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) offers additives and specialty ingredients that operates done Life Sciences, Personal Care, Specialty Additives, and Intermediates segments. The one-month instrumentality of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) was -14.84%, and its shares mislaid 48.98% of their worth implicit the past 52 weeks. On April 10, 2025, Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) banal closed astatine $48.59 per stock with a marketplace capitalization of $2.293 billion.

ClearBridge Mid Cap Strategy stated the pursuing regarding Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) successful its Q1 2025 capitalist letter:

"We exited our presumption successful chemic shaper Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH). While we were optimistic astir the extremity of destocking trends and a rebound successful demand, the institution continues to look sluggish extremity markets without signs of improvement."

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A chemist successful a laboratory mixing specialty chemicals and materials for research.

Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) is not connected our database of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 24 hedge money portfolios held Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) astatine the extremity of the 3rd 4th which was 25 successful the erstwhile quarter. Ashland Inc.’s (NYSE:ASH) fiscal archetypal 4th sales decreased 14% from the anterior year’s 4th to $405 million. While we admit the imaginable of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) arsenic an investment, our condemnation lies successful the content that AI stocks clasp greater committedness for delivering higher returns, and doing truthful wrong a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI banal that is arsenic promising arsenic NVIDIA but that trades astatine little than 5 times its earnings, cheque retired our study astir the cheapest AI stock.

We covered Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) successful different article, wherever we shared the database of stocks that are astir to explode. In addition, delight cheque retired our hedge money capitalist letters Q1 2025 page for much capitalist letters from hedge funds and different starring investors.

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