Hedge Funds Are Coming Back To J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (JBHT)

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 873 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 June 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) based on that data.

Is J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) a cheap investment now? The smart money was buying. The number of bullish hedge fund positions advanced by 4 in recent months. J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 38. Our calculations also showed that JBHT 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.

Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. 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. With all of this in mind we’re going to review the fresh hedge fund action regarding J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT).

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

Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 18% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards JBHT over the last 24 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) was held by AQR Capital Management, which reported holding $76.8 million worth of stock at the end of June. It was followed by Park Presidio Capital with a $76.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Balyasny Asset Management, Scopus Asset Management, and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Park Presidio Capital allocated the biggest weight to J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT), around 7.31% of its 13F portfolio. Running Oak Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 3.26 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to JBHT.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, created the most valuable position in J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT). Balyasny Asset Management had $37 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors also made a $20 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new JBHT positions are Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments, and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC), Principal Financial Group Inc (NASDAQ:PFG), Huazhu Group Limited (NASDAQ:HTHT), Zendesk Inc (NYSE:ZEN), Bill.com Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BILL), CMS Energy Corporation (NYSE:CMS), and Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to JBHT’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 36 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1119 million. That figure was $348 million in JBHT’s case. Bill.com Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BILL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Principal Financial Group Inc (NASDAQ:PFG) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for JBHT is 41. 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. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on JBHT as the stock returned 17.1% since the end of the second quarter (through 10/15) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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