FRANKLIN STREET ADVISORS INC /NC Increases $CRM Holdings

On 2022-03-31 FRANKLIN STREET ADVISORS INC /NC changed its ownership of CRM from 87,261 to 89,519. The current market value for these shares is 19.01M. As of Apr 18th, 2022 CRM represents 1.53% of their total portfolio.

It is useful to know how a fund is performing overall. This provides an indication of their ability to select stocks and build a profitable portfolio. It is tough to beat the market, and even tougher for funds because they need to have proper asset allocation relative to their fund's risk profile.

Fund Performance Summary

First, let's look at the fund itself to get some context before looking at the performance. FRANKLIN STREET ADVISORS INC /NC currently holds 157 different investments in their portfolio and have a current fund value of $1.24B. We can see based on the size of the fund that CRM, representing 1.53% of their total portfolio, is a pretty significant holding.

Let's take a closer look at FRANKLIN STREET ADVISORS INC /NC to see how they've performed as a whole. Here are their returns

1-year return 17.12%.
3-year return 85.82%.
Return Since inception 197.3%.

Typically we want to see a fund "beat" the market, otherwise you are better off just investing in the S&P 500. So let's take a quick look and see how FRANKLIN STREET ADVISORS INC /NC performed relative to the S&P 500 over the same time periods

1-year return vs S&P 500 is 3.08%
3-year return vs the S&P 500 is 25.99%
Return since inception vs S&P 500 is 52.2%

So this gives us a good sense of FRANKLIN STREET ADVISORS INC /NC performance as a fund. What we want to look at now is how they have managed their CRM holdings as part of their fund.

They first added CRM to their fund in 2018-06-30, which is a while ago. As mentioned earlier, they changed their holdings of CRM by 5.43% by buying 2,258 shares at an average price per share of $255.33

I think this is telling because of their performance history and their continued belief in wanted to increase their position in CRM

Why Tracking Fund Buying and Selling is Useful

There are several reasons a fund buys or sells different holdings in its portfolio. Most of the time they are rebalancing their portfolio to ensure it aligns with the fund's objectives and risk tolerance. When we see a relatively small change in holdings for a particular stock that they already own then it might not be particularly insightful. If we see a fund take a significant position in a company or sell a significant position then that is a sign of its conviction regarding the future performance of the company in question.

As an investor, this is useful to know because it provides an interesting data point in terms of what "smart" money thinks about a stock. Fund managers might come out and say positive or negative things about a company, but knowing where they actually put their money is more telling. This should be taken with a grain of salt because sometimes funds are wrong in their plays. You also have to look at the track record in terms of stock picks and performance.

Final Thoughts on CRM Position Increase

Looking at FRANKLIN STREET ADVISORS INC /NC recent re-allocation of its CRM holdings seems to be pretty straightforward and likely part of their risk management and rebalancing requirements. That being said, I think this is a good sign if you are a CRM investor. There have been several funds that have updated their holdings in CRM, and this is a good sign for investors.