The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on June 30th. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 873 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG) based on those filings.
PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG) was in 37 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 38. PRG investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund sentiment lately. There were 34 hedge funds in our database with PRG holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that PRG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
At the moment there are numerous metrics market participants use to evaluate their holdings. A duo of the best metrics are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top investment managers can outperform the market by a solid amount (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 (through August 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 79 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website.
Ken Heebner of Capital Growth Management
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, we like undervalued, EBITDA-positive growth stocks, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging biotech stock. 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. 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 we’re going to view the key hedge fund action regarding PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG).
Do Hedge Funds Think PRG Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At second quarter’s end, a total of 37 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 9% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards PRG over the last 24 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.
Among these funds, Diamond Hill Capital held the most valuable stake in PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG), which was worth $78.1 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was D E Shaw which amassed $55.2 million worth of shares. Arrowstreet Capital, Rip Road Capital, and 683 Capital 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 Lafitte Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG), around 12.54% of its 13F portfolio. Rip Road Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 7.23 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PRG.
As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Solel Partners, managed by Craig Peskin and Peter Fleiss, initiated the largest position in PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG). Solel Partners had $19.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Gregg Moskowitz’s Interval Partners also made a $13.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners, Ken Heebner’s Capital Growth Management, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG). These stocks are Casella Waste Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CWST), Ingevity Corporation (NYSE:NGVT), Prospect Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:PSEC), Kontoor Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:KTB), Liberty Latin America Ltd. (NASDAQ:LILA), Vertex, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERX), and Cabot Corporation (NYSE:CBT). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to PRG’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CWST | 26 | 115419 | 6 |
| NGVT | 21 | 316763 | 1 |
| PSEC | 11 | 48102 | 4 |
| KTB | 23 | 186225 | 7 |
| LILA | 16 | 137765 | 2 |
| VERX | 8 | 35739 | -3 |
| CBT | 18 | 83575 | -5 |
| Average | 17.6 | 131941 | 1.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $132 million. That figure was $423 million in PRG’s case. Casella Waste Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CWST) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vertex, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERX) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PRG is 87.2. 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 21.8% in 2021 through October 11th and still beat the market by 4.4 percentage points. Unfortunately PRG wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PRG were disappointed as the stock returned -9% since the end of the second quarter (through 10/11) 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 Prog Holdings Inc.
Follow Prog Holdings Inc.
Suggested Articles:
- 15 Largest Canadian Companies
- 15 Largest Fast Food Companies Is The World
- 10 Best Food Stocks To Buy Now
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
