Ashland (ASH) Declined on Lowered Full-Year Guidance
Diamond Hill Capital, an investment management company, released its “Small Cap Fund” second-quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the second quarter of 2023, markets were positive, and the US stocks rose over 8% (as measured by the Russell 3000 Index). The portfolio outperformed Russell 2000 Index in Q2 and returned 6.34%, bringing the YTD gains to 13.05%. Financial and consumer discretionary holdings were the source of relative strength in the quarter while the relative weakness came from consumer staples holdings and below-benchmark exposure to the information technology sector. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund highlighted stocks like Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) in the second quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) operates through life sciences and specialty additives. On July 28, 2023, Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) stock closed at $91.81 per share. One-month return of Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) was 5.15%, and its shares lost 9.568% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) has a market capitalization of $4.807 billion.
Diamond Hill Small Cap Fund made the following comment about Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:
"Our bottom contributors in Q2 included Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) and Cal-Maine Foods. Ashland is a high-quality, specialty ingredients company providing both natural and synthetic ingredients to customers in the pharmaceuticals, home and personal care, and coatings industries. During Q2, Ashland’s customers — primarily distributors — destocked, which in turn led management to lower full-year guidance and pressured shares. However, in our view, destocking tends to exaggerate any end-market weakness, and we anticipate any effects should be transitory and minimally impact the company’s intrinsic value."
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Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 29 hedge fund portfolios held Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) at the end of first quarter which was 30 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) in another article and shared the list of best chemical stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2023 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.
