How the Cards Fell for 11 Large-Cap Mutual Funds in 2015
ClearBridge Aggressive Growth Fund
The ClearBridge Aggressive Growth Fund – Class A (SHRAX) “invests primarily in common stocks of companies the portfolio managers believe are experiencing, or will experience, growth in earnings exceeding the average rate of earnings growth of the companies which comprise the S&P 500 Index. The fund may invest in the securities of large, well-known companies offering prospects of long-term earnings growth. However, because higher earnings growth rates are often achieved by small to medium capitalization companies, a significant portion of the fund’s assets may be invested in the securities of such companies.”
The fund website describes fund management as “patient,” as it intends to grow capital by investing in a high-conviction portfolio of companies with new or innovative technologies, products, and services.
The fund’s assets were invested across 77 holdings (stocks, bonds, and cash) as of December 2015, and the fund was managing assets worth $13.5 billion as of the end of December. Its top ten equity holdings in December included UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Comcast (CMCSA), SanDisk (SNDK), Broadcom (BRCM), and Anadarko (APC), comprising a combined 24.3% of the fund’s portfolio.
Historical portfolios
For this analysis, we will be considering holdings as of September 2015, as that is when the fund made its most recent sectoral breakdown declaration. The holdings after September reflect the valuation-driven changes to the portfolio, not the actual holding.
Unlike a lot of other mutual funds in this review, SHRAX has healthcare as its biggest sectoral holding, making up over a third of the fund’s assets. The information technology sector, which has generally emerged as the top sectoral holding for most funds in this review, comes in at the second spot with a little over a fifth of the fund’s assets invested in the sector. The consumer discretionary sector rounds out the top three sectors. No other sector’s weight is above 10%.
Interestingly, the fund is not invested in the consumer staples sector at all. Also, it does not have any exposure to the utilities sector and has just invested in the telecom services sector in September 2015. Another interesting aspect of SHRAX is that energy forms a substantial 9.6% of the fund’s assets.
The fund’s assets are quite evenly spread across the mid-cap and large-cap space. Has this unique positioning helped the fund or hurt its performance in 2015? Let’s look at that in the next article.