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 more than 750 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, 2019. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP).
Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP) was in 20 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2019. RHP investors should pay attention to a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers lately. There were 21 hedge funds in our database with RHP positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that RHP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Mario Gabelli of GAMCO Investors
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s view the new hedge fund action encompassing Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP).
What have hedge funds been doing with Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2019, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -5% from the second quarter of 2019. By comparison, 24 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in RHP a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, GAMCO Investors held the most valuable stake in Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP), which was worth $195.1 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $53.3 million worth of shares. Water Street Capital, Renaissance Technologies, and GLG Partners 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 Water Street Capital allocated the biggest weight to Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP), around 2.93% of its 13F portfolio. Corsair Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 2.62 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to RHP.
Because Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP) has experienced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that slashed their positions entirely last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Eduardo Abush’s Waterfront Capital Partners sold off the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $8.7 million in stock. Ian Simm’s fund, Impax Asset Management, also dropped its stock, about $5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP). These stocks are Smartsheet Inc. (NYSE:SMAR), Equity Commonwealth (NYSE:EQC), Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA), and RLI Corp. (NYSE:RLI). This group of stocks’ market caps match RHP’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMAR | 45 | 1213839 | -1 |
| EQC | 24 | 179039 | 4 |
| CPA | 18 | 284351 | 2 |
| RLI | 14 | 184377 | -1 |
| Average | 25.25 | 465402 | 1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 25.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $465 million. That figure was $398 million in RHP’s case. Smartsheet Inc. (NYSE:SMAR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand RLI Corp. (NYSE:RLI) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on RHP, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 9.1% during the first two months of the fourth quarter and outperformed the market.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
