Hedge Funds Love Hologic, Inc. (HOLX) Way More Than These 3 Stocks
We are still in an overall bull market and many stocks that smart money investors were piling into surged through the end of November. Among them, Facebook and Microsoft ranked among the top 3 picks and these stocks gained 54% and 51% respectively. Hedge funds' top 3 stock picks returned 41.7% this year and beat the S&P 500 ETFs by 14 percentage points. Investing in index funds guarantees you average returns, not superior returns. We are looking to generate superior returns for our readers. That's why we believe it isn't a waste of time to check out hedge fund sentiment before you invest in a stock like Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX) and compare it against peers like Sun Communities Inc (NYSE:SUI), Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE:ATO), Cna Financial Corporation (NYSE:CNA), and The Liberty SiriusXM Group (NASDAQ:LSXMK).
Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund sentiment of late. Our calculations also showed that HOLX isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds' large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that'll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
[caption id="attachment_262340" align="aligncenter" width="500"]
Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey of Healthcor Management[/caption]
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world's most bearish hedge fund that's more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn't rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds' buy/sell signals. We're going to take a look at the latest hedge fund action regarding Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX).
How have hedgies been trading Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX)?
At Q3's end, a total of 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 3% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards HOLX over the last 17 quarters. So, let's review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Glenview Capital was the largest shareholder of Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX), with a stake worth $414.5 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Glenview Capital was D E Shaw, which amassed a stake valued at $104.3 million. Citadel Investment Group, GLG Partners, and Two Sigma Advisors were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Glenview Capital allocated the biggest weight to Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX), around 4.36% of its portfolio. Tamarack Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 3.68 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HOLX.
As aggregate interest increased, some big names were leading the bulls' herd. Healthcor Management, managed by Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey, assembled the most valuable position in Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX). Healthcor Management had $40.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace's Marshall Wace also initiated a $33.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Mike Vranos's Ellington, George Zweig, Shane Haas and Ravi Chander's Signition LP, and Matthew Hulsizer's PEAK6 Capital Management.
Let's now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX). These stocks are Sun Communities Inc (NYSE:SUI), Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE:ATO), Cna Financial Corporation (NYSE:CNA), and The Liberty SiriusXM Group (NASDAQ:LSXMK). This group of stocks' market values resemble HOLX's market value.
[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position SUI,15,303237,-5 ATO,19,407896,5 CNA,14,86638,2 LSXMK,44,2852514,2 Average,23,912571,1 [/table]
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 23 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $913 million. That figure was $1018 million in HOLX's case. The Liberty SiriusXM Group (NASDAQ:LSXMK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Cna Financial Corporation (NYSE:CNA) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we'd rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately HOLX wasn't nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on HOLX were disappointed as the stock returned 1.6% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
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