Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track nearly 900 active prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile failures like hedge funds’ 2018 losses in Facebook and Apple. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT) in this article.
Is International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT) the right investment to pursue these days? The best stock pickers were getting more optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets inched up by 4 in recent months. International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT) was in 36 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 37. Our calculations also showed that IGT isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management
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. Now we’re going to analyze the latest hedge fund action encompassing International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT).
Do Hedge Funds Think IGT Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of September, a total of 36 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 13% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in IGT over the last 25 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, Parsifal Capital Management held the most valuable stake in International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT), which was worth $92.2 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Antara Capital which amassed $60.5 million worth of shares. Islet Management, Two Sigma Advisors, and Millennium Management 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 Alden Global Capital allocated the biggest weight to International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT), around 44.87% of its 13F portfolio. 1060 Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 23.82 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IGT.
Consequently, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Parsifal Capital Management, managed by David Zorub, assembled the most outsized position in International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT). Parsifal Capital Management had $92.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Randall Smith’s Alden Global Capital also initiated a $11.1 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new IGT investors: Leon Shaulov’s Maplelane Capital, Brian Gustavson and Andrew Haley’s 1060 Capital Management, and Brad Stephens’s Six Columns Capital.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT). These stocks are DeVry Inc. (NYSE:DV), HollyFrontier Corporation (NYSE:HFC), SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM), Element Solutions Inc. (NYSE:ESI), Squarespace Inc. (NYSE:SQSP), TFS Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:TFSL), and Evercore Inc. (NYSE:EVR). All of these stocks’ market caps match IGT’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| DV | 10 | 496623 | 10 |
| HFC | 24 | 411801 | -6 |
| SLM | 27 | 891503 | 0 |
| ESI | 28 | 649935 | 5 |
| SQSP | 11 | 93960 | 11 |
| TFSL | 9 | 133035 | 0 |
| EVR | 32 | 388540 | 1 |
| Average | 20.1 | 437914 | 3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $438 million. That figure was $491 million in IGT’s case. Evercore Inc. (NYSE:EVR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TFS Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:TFSL) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IGT is 88.2. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately IGT wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on IGT were disappointed as the stock returned 3.4% since the end of the third quarter (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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
