Polen Capital, an investment management firm, published its “Polen Global Growth Fund” first quarter 2022 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the first quarter of 2022, the Polen Global Growth Composite Portfolio (the “Portfolio) was down -13.30% and -13.54%, gross and net of fees, versus a decline of -5.35% for the MSCI ACWI (the “Index”). Try to spend some time looking at the fund’s top 5 holdings to be informed about their best picks for 2022.
In its Q1 2022 investor letter, Polen Global Growth Fund mentioned Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and explained its insights for the company. Founded in 1994, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is a Seattle, Washington-based multinational technology company with a $1.2 trillion market capitalization. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) delivered a -26.22% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -25.03%. The stock closed at $123.00 per share on June 07, 2022.
Here is what Polen Global Growth Fund has to say about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q1 2022 investor letter:
“Amazon has done a terrific job managing through the pandemic, in our view. Many companies struggled to pivot their business model during COVID-19, which represented an existential threat. Amazon had the opposite problem – a surge in demand. The company leaned into this by entering an extremely heavy investment cycle, doubling its fulfillment network and headcount over the past two years. To put this into context, Amazon added 273,000 employees in the last half of 2021 on top of over 400,000 employees the prior year. The company has also made significant Capital Expenditures, adding IT infrastructure for AWS and transportation capacity during this period. This all took place in the face of inflation related to wage increases and higher pricing from third-party carriers supporting the company’s fulfillment network. These heavy investments paid off—AWS grew 40% year over year, reached a $71B annual run rate, and total company revenue posted a two-year annual compounded growth rate of 25%. We believe this heavy investment cycle, like Amazon’s previous ones, will continue to support ongoing growth and will further separate Amazon from its competition while also providing the ability to increase margins through economies of scale. With respect to the margins specifically, AWS and Advertising – two fast-growing businesses – continue to contribute greater operating earnings to the overall business. We believe management has done an excellent job managing through this period and that the company is even stronger today than when COVID-19 first began to spread around the world.”
Our calculations show that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) tops our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) was in 271 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2022, compared to 279 funds in the previous quarter. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) delivered a -11.69% return in the past 3 months.
In May 2022, we published an article that includes Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in Jim Simons’ Portfolio in 2022: Top 10 Stock Picks. You can find other investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2022 Q1 page.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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