We at Insider Monkey have gone over 700 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of December 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE) based on that data.
Is Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE) a buy right now? Money managers are turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets moved up by 1 recently. Our calculations also showed that SEE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since May 2014 through March 12, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter. Even if you aren’t comfortable with shorting stocks, you should at least avoid initiating long positions in our short portfolio.
Let’s view the fresh hedge fund action regarding Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE).
What have hedge funds been doing with Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE)?
At Q4’s end, a total of 31 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 3% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards SEE over the last 14 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE) was held by Kensico Capital, which reported holding $204 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Rivulet Capital with a $151.6 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Millennium Management, Impax Asset Management, and Nitorum Capital.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Rivulet Capital, managed by Barry Lebovits and Joshua Kuntz, initiated the most outsized position in Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE). Rivulet Capital had $151.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global also initiated a $29.6 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new SEE investors: Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Nick Niell’s Arrowgrass Capital Partners, and David MacKnight’s One Fin Capital Management.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE) but similarly valued. These stocks are Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH), People’s United Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:PBCT), Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (NYSE:CRL), and Hubbell Incorporated (NYSE:HUBB). This group of stocks’ market valuations match SEE’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TECH | 17 | 298051 | -1 |
| PBCT | 22 | 118312 | 2 |
| CRL | 28 | 699016 | 8 |
| HUBB | 24 | 449250 | -3 |
| Average | 22.75 | 391157 | 1.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $391 million. That figure was $941 million in SEE’s case. Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (NYSE:CRL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 21.3% through April 8th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 5 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on SEE as the stock returned 33.1% and outperformed the market as well.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
