Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Fund” first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the first quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTMX returned -7.40%, Advisor Class fund APDMX posted a return of -7.37%, and Institutional Class fund APHMX returned -7.35%, compared to a -7.12% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. US equities achieved solid Q4 gains, concluding a strong year. After a period of strong growth stock performance in 2023 and 2024, value stocks gained the lead in Q1 2025. In a risk-averse environment, investors shifted towards lower-volatility equities, especially in the utilities and consumer staples sectors, alongside those with higher dividend yields. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Artisan Mid Cap Fund highlighted stocks such as Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN). Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) is a leading supplier of sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis. The one-month return of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) was 11.19%, and its shares lost 28.70% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 5, 2025, Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) stock closed at $78.17 per share with a market capitalization of $12.371 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“We ended our investment campaigns inIllumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN), Best Buy and Datadog during the quarter. Illumina is a leading provider of next generation sequencing instruments for genetic testing. Genome sequencing has become more mainstream as costs have fallen, expanding within academic research and into high-value clinical diagnostic testing applications. However, rising concerns about funding cuts to the National Institute of Health and news that China will restrict Illumina’s business have overwhelmed the longer term thesis, leading us to exit the position.”
A research facility with medical professionals surrounded by diagnostic equipment.
Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 61 hedge fund portfolios held Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 54 in the third quarter. Illumina, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:ILMN) fourth-quarter revenue reached $1.1 billion, surpassing expectations. While we acknowledge the potential of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) 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.
