Do Hedge Funds Love VICI Properties Inc. (VICI)?

After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of September 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI).

Is VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI) worth your attention right now? Investors who are in the know were getting more optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets improved by 10 in recent months. VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI) was in 47 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 59. Our calculations also showed that VICI 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. With all of this in mind let’s view the new hedge fund action surrounding VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI).

Stuart Zimmer of Zimmer Partners

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

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 47 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 27% from the second quarter of 2021. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in VICI over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI) was held by Gates Capital Management, which reported holding $198.8 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Long Pond Capital with a $181.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Zimmer Partners, Citadel Investment Group, and Pentwater Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Hein Park Capital allocated the biggest weight to VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI), around 9.92% of its 13F portfolio. Long Pond Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 6.63 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VICI.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Long Pond Capital, managed by John Khoury, created the most outsized position in VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI). Long Pond Capital had $181.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Stuart J. Zimmer’s Zimmer Partners also made a $172.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new VICI investors: Himanshu Gulati’s Antara Capital, Brian J. Higgins’s King Street Capital, and Joseph Samuels’s Islet Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI). We will take a look at HEICO Corporation (NYSE:HEI), Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX), SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC), Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX), Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE:DPZ), and J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to VICI’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 32.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1112 million. That figure was $1378 million in VICI’s case. SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR) is the least popular one with only 19 bullish hedge fund positions. VICI Properties Inc. (NYSE:VICI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VICI is 77.6. 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 positive signal but 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 beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately VICI wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VICI were disappointed as the stock returned -4.3% 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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