Cousins Properties Incorporated (CUZ): Hedge Funds Are Coming Back

The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity 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 March 31st, about a week after the S&P 500 Index bottomed. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 821 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ) based on those filings.

Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. CUZ was in 22 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with CUZ holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CUZ isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

Today there are many formulas market participants can use to grade their stock investments. Some of the most useful formulas are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a solid amount (see the details here).

Dmitry Balyasny of Balyasny Asset Management

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out trades like this one. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Now let’s review the latest hedge fund action encompassing Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ).

What have hedge funds been doing with Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ)?

Heading into the second quarter of 2020, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 83% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CUZ over the last 18 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management has the largest position in Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ), worth close to $20.7 million, corresponding to less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by John Khoury of Long Pond Capital, with a $17.8 million position; the fund has 0.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish comprise Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Daniel Johnson’s Gillson Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Hill Winds Capital allocated the biggest weight to Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ), around 6.28% of its 13F portfolio. Gillson Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 1.13 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CUZ.

As industrywide interest jumped, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Long Pond Capital, managed by John Khoury, assembled the most valuable position in Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ). Long Pond Capital had $17.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management also made a $11.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CUZ investors: Daniel Johnson’s Gillson Capital, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ). We will take a look at Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY), JBG SMITH Properties (NYSE:JBGS), Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR), and FLIR Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLIR). All of these stocks’ market caps match CUZ’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $255 million. That figure was $77 million in CUZ’s case. FLIR Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLIR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY) is the least popular one with only 19 bullish hedge fund positions. Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 13.9% in 2020 through June 10th and surpassed the market by 14.2 percentage points. Unfortunately CUZ wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); CUZ investors were disappointed as the stock returned 20.1% during the second quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.