Has the Smart Money Found A Winner in Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (MPW)?

Hedge funds and other investment firms run by legendary investors like Israel Englander and Ray Dalio are entrusted to manage billions of dollars of accredited investors’ money because they are without peer in the resources they use to identify the best investments for their chosen investment horizon. Moreover, they are more willing to invest a greater amount of their resources in small-cap stocks than big brokerage houses, and this is often where they generate their outperformance, which is why we pay particular attention to their best ideas in this space.

Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (NYSE:MPW) was in 23 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. MPW investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with MPW holdings 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 Tribune Media Co (NYSE:TRCO), Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT), and LATAM Airlines Group SA (ADR) (NYSE:LFL) to gather more data points.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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What have hedge funds been doing with Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (NYSE:MPW)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 23 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a massive jump of 92% from the previous quarter, lifting the 2-quarter surge in hedge fund ownership to 130%. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Cardinal Capital, managed by Amy Minella, holds the most valuable position in Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (NYSE:MPW). According to regulatory filings, the fund has a $54.4 million position in the stock, comprising 2.5% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Citadel Investment Group, led by Ken Griffin, holding a $33.5 million position. Remaining professional money managers that are bullish encompass Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.