In this article we will take a look at whether hedge funds think Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH) is a good investment right now. We check hedge fund and billionaire investor sentiment before delving into hours of research. Hedge funds spend millions of dollars on Ivy League graduates, unconventional data sources, expert networks, and get tips from investment bankers and industry insiders. Sure they sometimes fail miserably, but their consensus stock picks historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk factors.
Is Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH) ready to rally soon? The best stock pickers were turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund positions moved up by 6 recently. Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH) was in 49 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 50. Our calculations also showed that ATH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Now let’s analyze the key hedge fund action regarding Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH).
Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors
Do Hedge Funds Think ATH Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At third quarter’s end, a total of 49 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 14% from the second quarter of 2021. By comparison, 31 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ATH a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH) was held by Pentwater Capital Management, which reported holding $247.2 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Magnetar Capital with a $160.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Alpine Associates, Omega Advisors, and Arrowstreet Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position OCO Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH), around 46.03% of its 13F portfolio. Moab Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 13.92 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ATH.
As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Newbrook Capital Advisors, managed by Robert Boucai, established the most outsized position in Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH). Newbrook Capital Advisors had $71 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Glenn Greenberg’s Brave Warrior Capital also made a $29.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ATH positions are John Bader’s Halcyon Asset Management, Mark Rachesky’s MHR Fund Management, and Orkun Kilic’s Berry Street Capital.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP), CBOE Global Markets Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE), Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM), Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (NYSE:AAP), Packaging Corporation Of America (NYSE:PKG), Telefonica Brasil SA (NYSE:VIV), and The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM). This group of stocks’ market caps match ATH’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| IEP | 4 | 12385467 | 0 |
| CBOE | 35 | 970799 | 4 |
| WSM | 31 | 730615 | -3 |
| AAP | 35 | 899336 | 1 |
| PKG | 26 | 281022 | -5 |
| VIV | 5 | 42334 | -4 |
| SJM | 25 | 506030 | -9 |
| Average | 23 | 2259372 | -2.3 |
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 $2259 million. That figure was $1675 million in ATH’s case. CBOE Global Markets Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ATH is 89.4. 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. 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 returned 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th but still managed to beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on ATH as the stock returned 18.9% since the end of September (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
Follow Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH)
Follow Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE:ATH)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
