After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of June 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards American Tower Corporation (REIT) (NYSE:AMT).
American Tower Corporation (REIT) (NYSE:AMT) was in 55 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 62. AMT investors should be aware of a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. There were 58 hedge funds in our database with AMT holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that AMT isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
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William Von Mueffling of Cantillon Capital Management
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Do Hedge Funds Think AMT Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At second quarter’s end, a total of 55 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -5% from the first quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in AMT over the last 24 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Charles Akre’s Akre Capital Management has the number one position in American Tower Corporation (REIT) (NYSE:AMT), worth close to $1.8954 billion, amounting to 11.7% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Cantillon Capital Management, managed by William von Mueffling, which holds a $531.4 million position; the fund has 3.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money that are bullish comprise Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management, Panayotis Takis Sparaggis’s Alkeon Capital Management and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Akre Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to American Tower Corporation (REIT) (NYSE:AMT), around 11.67% of its 13F portfolio. Heard Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 8.98 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMT.
Since American Tower Corporation (REIT) (NYSE:AMT) has experienced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of hedge funds who sold off their positions entirely by the end of the second quarter. Intriguingly, Brandon Haley’s Holocene Advisors cut the largest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $130.7 million in stock, and Jaime Sterne’s Skye Global Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $53.1 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds by the end of the second quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to American Tower Corporation (REIT) (NYSE:AMT). These stocks are Sony Group Corp (NYSE:SONY), Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT), TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE), General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), HSBC Holdings plc (NYSE:HSBC), and Vale SA (NYSE:VALE). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble AMT’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SONY | 20 | 409056 | -7 |
| TGT | 66 | 5865028 | 6 |
| CAT | 62 | 5264268 | 9 |
| TTE | 15 | 1132420 | -2 |
| GE | 67 | 6087180 | -1 |
| HSBC | 11 | 212763 | -1 |
| VALE | 27 | 3573958 | -4 |
| Average | 38.3 | 3220668 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 38.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3221 million. That figure was $4720 million in AMT’s case. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand HSBC Holdings plc (NYSE:HSBC) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. American Tower Corporation (REIT) (NYSE:AMT) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AMT is 67.9. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 22.9% in 2021 through October 1st and beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately AMT wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on AMT were disappointed as the stock returned -0.8% since the end of June (through 10/1) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
