Mar Vista Investment Partners, LLC, an investment management company, released the “Mar Vista U.S. Quality Select Strategy” first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. US stocks suffered their worst quarter in three years, with the steepest losses since 2022, due to tariff concerns and economic stagnation fears. In the first quarter, the strategy returned -3.05% net-of-fees compared to -4.49% and -4.27% returns for the Russell 1000® Index and the S&P 500® Index, respectively. Stock selection within healthcare, communication services, and consumer staples detracted from the fund’s performance during the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.

In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Mar Vista U.S. Quality Select Strategy highlighted stocks such as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is a multinational company that engages in the research, development, and manufacturing of products in the healthcare field. The one-month return of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) was -5.03%, and its shares gained 5.52% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 24, 2025, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) stock closed at $154.93 per share with a market capitalization of $372.772 billion.

Mar Vista U.S. Quality Select Strategy stated the following regarding Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

"Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) appreciated 16% as the market favored businesses with more defensive characteristics. JNJ also posted strong fundamental results in pharmaceutical (+7% revenue growth) ahead of Stelera biogeneric approvals in January 2025. We expect JNJ to grow revenues 5-7% through 2030 with faster EPS growth driven by new innovative immunology, oncology, and neurology drugs. JNJ’s MedTech franchise should outpace the growth of the rest of the industry on the strength of new products in electrophysiology, orthopedics, and robotics."

A smiling baby with an array of baby care products in the foreground.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 98 hedge fund portfolios held Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) at the end of the fourth quarter, compared to 81 in the third quarter. In the first quarter of 2025, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) worldwide sales were $21.9 billion, representing a 2.4% increase from prior year quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

In another article, we covered Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and shared the list of best dividend stocks according to analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 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.