Artisan Reduced Amer Sports (AS) After Its Rally Despite Long-Term Brand Strength

Artisan Reduced Amer Sports (AS) After Its Rally Despite Long-Term Brand Strength

Thu, September 3, 2026 at 4:09 PM GMT+3 3 min read

• AS -0.04%

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 Strategy highlighted Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS). Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) is a leading sporting company that designs, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells sports equipment, apparel, footwear, and accessories. On September 2, 2026, Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) closed at $28.56 per share. Over the past month, Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) fell 20.91%, and its shares lost 24.42% over the past 52 weeks. Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) has a market capitalization of $16.62 billion.

Artisan Global Opportunities Strategy stated the following regarding Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) in its Q2 2026 investor letter:

"In addition to AMD, Lam, Insmed, BAE Systems and L3Harris, other notable trims during the quarter were Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) and Tencent. Amer Sports owns a portfolio of premium outdoor and sporting goods brands, including Arc'teryx, Salomon and Wilson. We used the recent rebound in the share price to begin harvesting the position, as the company appears to be further along in its profit cycle and faces increasingly difficult year-over-year comparisons. While the company has continued to execute well and has benefited from strong brand momentum, we moved the position to HarvestSM because we viewed the risk reward as less compelling than opportunities earlier in their profit cycles or where we have greater conviction in the earnings outlook. Although we continue to view Amer Sports as a collection of high-quality brands with attractive long-term characteristics, we believe capital can be deployed more effectively elsewhere."

Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) is not on our list of the 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 59 hedge fund portfolios held Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) at the end of the second quarter which was 69 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Amer Sports, Inc. (NYSE:AS) 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 highlighted Amer Sports, Inc.'s (NYSE:AS) strong results that exceeded expectations. 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.