Hedge Funds Are Cashing Out Of Liberty Broadband Corp (LBRDK)

Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of September. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 900 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.

Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) investors should pay attention to a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) was in 70 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 80. There were 80 hedge funds in our database with LBRDK positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that LBRDK isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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George Soros of Soros Fund Management

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 70 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -13% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 45 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in LBRDK a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Eagle Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), with a stake worth $1384.6 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Eagle Capital Management was Soros Fund Management, which amassed a stake valued at $631.1 million. Aristeia Capital, FPR Partners, and Stockbridge 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 Makaira Partners allocated the biggest weight to Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), around 29.17% of its 13F portfolio. Cat Rock Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 29.02 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LBRDK.

Because Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) has witnessed a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there were a few fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes in the first quarter. Interestingly, Andrew Immerman and Jeremy Schiffman’s Palestra Capital Management dumped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, worth about $162.9 million in stock. Gaurav Kapadia’s fund, XN Exponent Advisors, also cut its stock, about $67.5 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 10 funds in the first quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK). These stocks are Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS), First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC), ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAC), Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKTA), Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST), The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB), and Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to LBRDK’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 45 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1217 million. That figure was $6857 million in LBRDK’s case. ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST) is the least popular one with only 24 bullish hedge fund positions. Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LBRDK is 56.6. 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 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and still beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on LBRDK, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 8% since Q1 (through June 11th) and outperformed the market as well.

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