With the first-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the second quarter of 2021. One of these stocks was Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI).
Is Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) a buy here? The smart money was selling. The number of long hedge fund bets went down by 1 recently. Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 28. Our calculations also showed that PBI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). There were 22 hedge funds in our database with PBI holdings at the end of December.
If you’d ask most traders, hedge funds are seen as underperforming, old financial tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds trading at the moment, Our researchers look at the crème de la crème of this club, around 850 funds. These hedge fund managers handle bulk of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by tailing their inimitable investments, Insider Monkey has discovered a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per year since its inception in March 2017. Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .
Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Chuck Schumer recently stated that marijuana legalization will be a Senate priority. So, we are checking out this under the radar stock that will benefit from this. We go through lists like the 10 best battery 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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Keeping this in mind let’s analyze the latest hedge fund action encompassing Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI).
Do Hedge Funds Think PBI Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of March, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -5% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 15 hedge funds with a bullish position in PBI a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Royce & Associates was the largest shareholder of Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI), with a stake worth $21 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Royce & Associates was Arrowstreet Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $18 million. Masters Capital Management, Litespeed Management, and Rima Senvest 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 Litespeed Management allocated the biggest weight to Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI), around 16.19% of its 13F portfolio. Voss Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.37 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PBI.
Because Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) has experienced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there is a sect of funds that slashed their full holdings last quarter. At the top of the heap, Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital said goodbye to the biggest position of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth about $2.1 million in stock. Mike Vranos’s fund, Ellington, also dumped its stock, about $1.6 million worth. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds last quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI). We will take a look at Stoke Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STOK), Kaman Corporation (NYSE:KAMN), Hailiang Education Group Inc. (NASDAQ:HLG), MAG Silver Corporation (NYSE:MAG), Replimune Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:REPL), Precigen, Inc. (NYSE:PGEN), and Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc. (NYSE:SKT). All of these stocks’ market caps match PBI’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| STOK | 15 | 202726 | 2 |
| KAMN | 14 | 183420 | 5 |
| HLG | 1 | 5991 | 0 |
| MAG | 12 | 89044 | 0 |
| REPL | 13 | 246521 | -5 |
| PGEN | 17 | 145044 | 6 |
| SKT | 15 | 81236 | -1 |
| Average | 12.4 | 136283 | 1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $136 million. That figure was $130 million in PBI’s case. Precigen, Inc. (NYSE:PGEN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Hailiang Education Group Inc. (NASDAQ:HLG) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PBI is 76.5. 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. 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 23.8% in 2021 through July 16th and still beat the market by 7.7 percentage points. Unfortunately PBI wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PBI were disappointed as the stock returned 3.2% since the end of the first quarter (through 7/16) 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 since 2019.
Follow Pitney Bowes Inc (NYSE:PBI)
Follow Pitney Bowes Inc (NYSE:PBI)
Suggested Articles:
- 10 Best Finance Stocks To Buy Now
- 25 Best Caribbean Islands To Visit in 2021
- Top Chinese Companies on NASDAQ
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
