Did The Smart Money Play Fiserv, Inc. (FISV) Correctly?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 867 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. Hedge funds’ consensus stock picks performed spectacularly over the last 3 years, but 2022 hasn’t been kind to hedge funds. In this article we look at how hedge funds traded Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV) and determine whether the smart money was really smart about this stock.

Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV) has seen a decrease in hedge fund interest lately. Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV) was in 65 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 94. There were 72 hedge funds in our database with FISV holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that FISV 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 review the key hedge fund action encompassing Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV).

Michael Lowenstein of Kensico Capital

Do Hedge Funds Think FISV Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of September, a total of 65 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -10% from the second quarter of 2021. By comparison, 90 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in FISV a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, ValueAct Capital held the most valuable stake in Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV), which was worth $1186.5 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was BlueSpruce Investments which amassed $780.3 million worth of shares. Kensico Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, and Point State Capital 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 ValueAct Capital allocated the biggest weight to Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV), around 13.74% of its 13F portfolio. BlueSpruce Investments is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 13.59 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FISV.

Since Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV) has faced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there was a specific group of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Renaissance Technologies sold off the largest position of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth close to $85.1 million in stock. Michael O’Keefe’s fund, 12th Street Asset Management, also dropped its stock, about $20.3 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 7 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV). We will take a look at Equinix Inc (NASDAQ:EQIX), Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE:BDX), Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE:EW), Vale SA (NYSE:VALE), DoorDash, Inc. (NYSE:DASH), CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME), and Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to FISV’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 45.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3147 million. That figure was $3945 million in FISV’s case. CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vale SA (NYSE:VALE) is the least popular one with only 27 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for FISV is 68.7. 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 gained 29.6% in 2021 and still beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. Unfortunately, FISV wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on FISV were disappointed as the stock returned -2.6% since the end of the third quarter (through 1/31) 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 all of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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