Artisan Sold Cencora (COR) as Earnings Momentum Slowed

Artisan Sold Cencora (COR) as Earnings Momentum Slowed

Thu, September 3, 2026 at 4:11 PM GMT+3 3 min read

• COR -0.05%

Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its second-quarter 2026 investor commentary for the "Artisan Global Opportunities Strategy". The letter can be downloaded here. Global equities rebounded sharply during the quarter, with the MSCI ACWI Index returning 15.3% as resilient economic growth, strong corporate earnings, and continued enthusiasm around artificial intelligence supported markets despite persistent inflation, higher bond yields, and geopolitical uncertainty. The portfolio reported strong absolute returns of 12.65% (net) but underperformed the benchmark, mainly because of its underweight exposure to information technology and overweight position in health care. Strong stock selection in technology and energy partially offset these headwinds. The fund continues to see attractive long-term opportunities across AI infrastructure, health care, and consumer internet, while remaining disciplined on valuation as several AI-related stocks have appreciated sharply. Management remains focused on durable franchises with identifiable profit cycles and attractive long-term earnings potential. Also, check the Strategy's top five holdings to see its best picks in 2026.

In its second-quarter 2026 investor letter, Artisan Global Opportunities Fund highlighted Cencora (NYSE:COR). Cencora (NYSE:COR) is a global pharmaceutical sourcing and distribution services company serving healthcare providers and manufacturers. On September 2, 2026, Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) closed at $336.36 per share. Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) returned 3.49% over the past month, and its shares gained 14.92% over the past 52 weeks. Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) has a market capitalization of $63.16 billion with a 52-week trading range between $244.82 - $377.54.

Artisan Global Opportunities Fund stated the following regarding Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) in its Q2 2026 investor letter:

"We ended our investment campaigns in Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR), Lonza Group and Medline during the quarter. While health care remains a core area of the portfolio, we remain pragmatic when individual companies fail to meet our fundamental expectations or when profit cycles mature. In each case, stock-specific disappointments reduced our conviction in the remaining earnings opportunity, leading us to redeploy capital toward earlier stage profit cycles and higher conviction ideas across the portfolio. Cencora is a major distributor of branded, generic and specialty drugs. We exited the position as the profit cycle matured and recent results reinforced our view that the company's strongest period of earnings momentum is likely behind it. While Cencora remains a high-quality franchise, we saw fewer catalysts to accelerate growth and chose to redeploy capital into earlier stage profit cycles where we have greater conviction."

Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) is not on our list of the 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 63 hedge fund portfolios held Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) at the end of the second quarter which was 61 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

In another article, we covered Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) and shared Alpha Wealth Funds, LLCs' insight on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2026 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.