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 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG).
Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG) has experienced a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money lately. Our calculations also showed that ROG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 58 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 36% through May 18th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Noam Gottesman of GLG Partners
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Now let’s check out the key hedge fund action regarding Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG).
How have hedgies been trading Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -10% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 9 hedge funds with a bullish position in ROG 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, Royce & Associates was the largest shareholder of Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG), with a stake worth $23.2 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Royce & Associates was ACK Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $21.9 million. Fisher Asset Management, Skylands Capital, and D E Shaw 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 ACK Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG), around 10.92% of its 13F portfolio. Skylands Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.62 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ROG.
Since Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG) has faced falling interest from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that decided to sell off their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners dropped the largest stake of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $1.7 million in stock, and Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $1.7 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds last quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE:VG), BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU), PolyOne Corporation (NYSE:POL), and International Bancshares Corp (NASDAQ:IBOC). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble ROG’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| VG | 25 | 206818 | -10 |
| BKU | 18 | 172092 | -7 |
| POL | 28 | 165324 | 4 |
| IBOC | 16 | 96910 | -4 |
| Average | 21.75 | 160286 | -4.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 21.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $160 million. That figure was $77 million in ROG’s case. PolyOne Corporation (NYSE:POL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand International Bancshares Corp (NASDAQ:IBOC) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 13.4% in 2020 through June 22nd but beat the market by 15.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on ROG, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 25.5% during the second quarter and outperformed the market.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
