Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its second-quarter 2026 investor letter for its “Artisan Small Cap Fund”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund reported strong absolute returns and modestly outperformed the Russell 2000® Growth Index, which gained 25.7%. Global equities rebounded as resilient US growth, moderating inflation, strong earnings and continued AI investment outweighed delayed rate cuts, rising bond yields and geopolitical uncertainty. Investor Class: ARTSX, Advisor Class: APDSX, and Institutional Class: APHSX returned 26.02%, 26.05%, and 26.11%, respectively, in the second quarter, compared to a 25.71% return for the index. Market leadership favored loss-making, highly leveraged companies, creating a difficult environment for quality-focused active managers. Health care was the strongest relative contributor, while energy, materials, financials and real estate also helped. Technology, industrials and consumer discretionary detracted, partly because the fund did not own oversized index contributors. Software holdings also weakened despite strong fundamentals. The fund remains positive on small-cap opportunities, AI infrastructure and health care, but has reduced software exposure and is staying selective as valuations rise and competitive risks increase. In addition, please check the Fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2026.
In its second-quarter 2026 investor letter, Artisan Small Cap Fund highlighted Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT). Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) operates as a financial services company that operates through Market Making and Execution Services segments. On July 23, 2026, Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) closed at $59.67 per share. One-month return of Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) was -1.89% and its shares gained 34.75% over the past 52 weeks. Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) has a market capitalization of $9.25 billion with a 52-week range between $31.55 – $68.02.
Artisan Small Cap Fund stated the following regarding Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) in its Q2 2026 investor letter:
“Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) is a technology-enabled market maker and execution services provider. We believe it has a strong franchise built on market structure expertise, a low-risk trading model and a scalable platform spanning equities, ETFs, futures, foreign exchange, options and crypto. We initiated a Garden position and later elevated it to a Crop position as our conviction increased. We have owned Virtu previously and are encouraged by the new CEO’s strategic changes, including expansion into new products and geographies while maintaining its disciplined risk profile. We believe these initiatives support a durable company-specific profit cycle driven by market share gains, growth in execution services and continued expansion in options, ETF block trading and crypto. A more supportive market environment should make the benefits of these strategic changes increasingly evident over time.”