Hedge Funds Are Betting On The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN)

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 873 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of June 30th, 2021. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN).

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 35. There were 23 hedge funds in our database with HAIN positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that HAIN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 79 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Glenn Welling of Engaged Capital

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium 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. Now we’re going to take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action regarding The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN).

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

At the end of June, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 13% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 24 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in HAIN a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Engaged Capital was the largest shareholder of The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN), with a stake worth $641.8 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Engaged Capital was Paradice Investment Management, which amassed a stake valued at $74.1 million. Soros Fund Management, Arrowstreet Capital, and GAMCO Investors 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 Engaged Capital allocated the biggest weight to The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN), around 49.72% of its 13F portfolio. Paradice Investment Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 3.44 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HAIN.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Magnetar Capital, managed by Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser, established the largest position in The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN). Magnetar Capital had $2.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $1 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new HAIN positions are Mika Toikka’s AlphaCrest Capital Management, Qing Li’s Sciencast Management, and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN). We will take a look at CONMED Corporation (NYSE:CNMD), American National Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAT), Avnet, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVT), Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ:SABR), Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL), BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU), and Physicians Realty Trust (NYSE:DOC). All of these stocks’ market caps match HAIN’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $341 million. That figure was $932 million in HAIN’s case. Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ:SABR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for HAIN is 57.4. 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 24.9% in 2021 through October 15th and still beat the market by 4.5 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on HAIN as the stock returned 12.5% since the end of Q2 (through 10/15) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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