Company: BDJ
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form Type: N-CSR
Source: 0001193125-25-049575
Chunk: 16

Company: BlackRock Enhanced Equity Dividend Trust
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form: N-CSR
Chunk 16
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 made for financial reporting purposes in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
Past performance is not an indication of future results. The Trust is presenting the performance of one or more indices for informational purposes only. The Trust is actively managed and does not seek to track or replicate the performance of any index. The index performance shown is not intended to be indicative of the Trust’s investment strategies, portfolio components or past or future performance. More information about the Trust’s historical performance can be found in the “Closed End Funds” section of blackrock.com . The following discussion relates to the Trust’s relative performance based on NAV: What factors influenced performance? In sector terms, positive contributions to relative performance were led by stock selection within information technology. An underweight to and stock selection in materials along with selection within energy also contributed during the period. In terms of individual positions, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (“TSMC”) was the top contributor to relative performance. TSMC’s strong position has been made even clearer by the weakness of fellow chipmakers Samsung and Intel. Management had struck a confident tone to the effect that, while the company is seeing strong growth driven by artificial intelligence (“AI”), it expected 2025 to see a broader recovery in end markets. TSMC’s dominant industry position makes it one of the strategy’s highest conviction holdings entering the new year. Exposure to ASICS Corp. also contributed meaningfully as strong results for the high-quality sportswear franchise were driven throughout the year by sales of its high-performance footwear. The Trust exited the position late in the period as the valuation target for the stock had been achieved. A lack of exposure to Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. contributed as the shares lagged due to disappointing execution in its semiconductor foundry business, lagging efforts to further penetrate the high bandwidth memory market, and geopolitical concerns around selling into China. Within semiconductors, the Trust was overweight in Texas Instruments Inc., a less-AI focused chipmaker which performed well throughout the year. Security selection within and an overweight to financials weighed most heavily on relative performance, while selection in consumer staples and communication services also detracted. Shares of Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk experienced a pullback after recent strong performance as clinical trial results for weight loss drug CagriSema failed to represent an advance over Eli Lilly’s existing entry. While this outcome has hurt the optics around Novo Nordisk’s competitive position versus Eli-Lilly, the two companies are expected to dominate the obesity treatment market for the foreseeable future, and