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. Insider Monkey finished processing 867 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, 2021. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP).
NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) was in 29 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 34. NTAP investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. There were 31 hedge funds in our database with NTAP positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that NTAP 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 take a look at the new hedge fund action regarding NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP).
Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital
Do Hedge Funds Think NTAP Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q3’s end, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -6% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 31 hedge funds with a bullish position in NTAP a year ago. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Arrowstreet Capital was the largest shareholder of NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP), with a stake worth $195.4 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Arrowstreet Capital was Renaissance Technologies, which amassed a stake valued at $118.6 million. Two Sigma Advisors, Holocene Advisors, and D E Shaw 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 Sustainable Insight Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP), around 3.65% of its 13F portfolio. L2 Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 2.3 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NTAP.
Judging by the fact that NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) has witnessed falling interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there is a sect of funds who sold off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Richard SchimeláandáLawrence Sapanski’s Cinctive Capital Management dumped the biggest stake of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $6 million in stock. Michael Gelband’s fund, ExodusPoint Capital, also sold off its stock, about $2.8 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP). We will take a look at Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY), Citizens Financial Group Inc (NYSE:CFG), Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR), RingCentral Inc (NYSE:RNG), Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI), ON Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:ON), and Cheniere Energy Partners LP (NYSE:CQP). This group of stocks’ market values match NTAP’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TDY | 38 | 1703394 | 2 |
| CFG | 34 | 361791 | -2 |
| ETR | 30 | 283209 | -1 |
| RNG | 48 | 2905250 | 1 |
| DRI | 25 | 337086 | -19 |
| ON | 41 | 1251738 | -3 |
| CQP | 3 | 10790 | 1 |
| Average | 31.3 | 979037 | -3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $979 million. That figure was $671 million in NTAP’s case. RingCentral Inc (NYSE:RNG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Cheniere Energy Partners LP (NYSE:CQP) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for NTAP is 57.5. 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 negative signal and 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 surpassed the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately NTAP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); NTAP investors were disappointed as the stock returned -0.4% 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.
Follow Netapp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)
Follow Netapp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)
Suggested Articles:
Top 10 Agriculture Stocks To Buy Now
13 Countries with largest gay populations
12 Most Famous Monopolies of All Time
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
