Hedge funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of September. At Insider Monkey, we follow over 700 of the best-performing investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A) , so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.
Is Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A) a buy, sell, or hold? Prominent investors are really in a bullish mood. The number of long hedge fund positions increased by 1 lately. A was in 41 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 40 hedge funds in our database with A positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX), BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:BMRN), and Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC) to gather more data points.
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We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs. We launched this strategy 2.5 years ago and it returned more than 39% since then, vs. 22% gain registered by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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Hedge fund activity in Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A)
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 41 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, an increase of 3% from the second quarter of 2016. On the other hand, there were a total of 46 hedge funds with a bullish position in A at the beginning of this year. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Cantillon Capital Management, led by William von Mueffling, holds the largest position in Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A). Cantillon Capital Management has a $211.2 million position in the stock, comprising 3% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is OrbiMed Advisors, led by Samuel Isaly, holding a $174.9 million position; 2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining members of the smart money with similar optimism comprise D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Polar Capital, led by Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley, initiated the largest position in Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A). Polar Capital had $19.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. George Hall’s Clinton Group also made a $8.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new A positions are Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital, and Ernest Chow and Jonathan Howe’s Sensato Capital Management.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A). These stocks are Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX), BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:BMRN), Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC), and Smith & Nephew plc (ADR) (NYSE:SNN). All of these stocks’ market caps match A’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LRCX | 47 | 2031070 | 0 |
| BMRN | 54 | 1669740 | 12 |
| VMC | 41 | 1414346 | -1 |
| SNN | 11 | 233062 | 1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 38 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.34 billion. That figure was $1.4 billion in A’s case. BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:BMRN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Smith & Nephew plc (ADR) (NYSE:SNN) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Agilent Technologies Inc (NYSE:A) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard BMRN might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: None
