Parnassus Value Equity Fund Q3 2026 Portfolio Review

Parnassus Value Equity Fund (Investor Shares) returned -1.38% net of fees for the quarter, underperforming the Russell 1000 Value Index, which gained 2.61%. Thermo Fisher, CME Group, NICE, Willis Towers Watson and Verizon were top contributors; Cummins, Applied Materials, Brookfield Renewable, Home Depot and AstraZeneca were bottom contributors.

Analysis

This is an attribution signal, not a forward catalyst. The contributors and detractors span unrelated businesses, so the selected names do not support a clean sector or factor conclusion; the fund’s relative shortfall may reflect position sizing, security selection, or exposures not visible here. Do not infer that the laggards are cheap or that the contributors have improving fundamentals from attribution alone. The second-order risk is investor overreaction to a single-quarter ranking: if the underperformance persists, fund flows and pressure to alter holdings could matter more than this report’s stock-level signal, but no flow or positioning data is provided. Over 1–3 months, the useful test is whether the named companies’ earnings and guidance validate or reverse their relative performance; over 6–18 months, watch whether any persistent benchmark gap reflects repeatable portfolio exposures rather than isolated stock outcomes. The thesis is falsified as a concern if subsequent relative returns stabilize and disclosed attribution shows the gap was concentrated in a small number of positions. Missing inputs before taking stock-level risk: contribution weights, holdings and position changes, drivers of each stock’s return, valuation, and forward earnings revisions.

Key Decisions for Investors

• No trade based solely on this quarterly attribution; it does not establish a durable fundamental change in AMAT, CMI, HD, AZN, TMO, CME, NICE, WTW, or VZ.
• Request full contribution and exposure attribution—including sector, factor, cash, and position-size effects—before treating the benchmark shortfall as a repeatable portfolio problem.
• Set an alert for the next disclosed holdings/quarterly update and earnings revisions among the largest detractors; consider a relative-value position only if fundamentals and valuation support it, not simply because a name was a laggard.
• Reassess the fund-versus-index thesis if relative underperformance persists across subsequent reporting periods; stabilization in relative returns would weaken the case for an allocation change.