The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on September 30th. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 867 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) based on those filings.
Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund interest of late. Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) was in 54 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 67. Our calculations also showed that ADSK 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 we’re going to analyze the new hedge fund action surrounding Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK).
William Von Mueffling of Cantillon Capital Management
Do Hedge Funds Think ADSK Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 54 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -16% from the second quarter of 2021. On the other hand, there were a total of 65 hedge funds with a bullish position in ADSK a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Cantillon Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK), with a stake worth $341.7 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Cantillon Capital Management was Impax Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $318.2 million. Echo Street Capital Management, Citadel Investment Group, and Fisher Asset Management 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 Marlowe Partners allocated the biggest weight to Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK), around 7.83% of its 13F portfolio. Cartenna Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 5.8 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ADSK.
Seeing as Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) has experienced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of money managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. Interestingly, Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital Management dumped the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth about $272.9 million in stock. Renaissance Technologies, also dumped its stock, about $82.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 10 funds last quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) but similarly valued. These stocks are Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE:SAN), VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW), Workday Inc (NASDAQ:WDAY), Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX), Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), Stellantis N.V. (NYSE:STLA), and Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble ADSK’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAN | 14 | 543799 | -3 |
| VMW | 31 | 618586 | 3 |
| WDAY | 72 | 6389641 | 0 |
| BSX | 47 | 3051321 | -4 |
| ATVI | 80 | 4284643 | 2 |
| STLA | 24 | 1178890 | -4 |
| ECL | 39 | 2551887 | -9 |
| Average | 43.9 | 2659824 | -2.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 43.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2660 million. That figure was $2357 million in ADSK’s case. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE:SAN) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ADSK is 49.5. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately ADSK wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on ADSK were disappointed as the stock returned -10.9% since the end of September (through 11/30) 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.
Follow Autodesk Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK)
Follow Autodesk Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK)
Suggested Articles:
- 10 Best Stocks to Buy for Your Child
- 15 Most profitable industries in the world in 2021
- 20 Best Stocks To Buy RIght Now
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
