The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the March quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS).
Is Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS) a good investment now? The best stock pickers were turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 5 lately. Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS) was in 32 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 50. Our calculations also showed that KEYS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
To the average investor there are numerous methods market participants employ to assess stocks. A couple of the less utilized methods are hedge fund and insider trading signals. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best investment managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a superb amount (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .
John Rogers of Ariel Investments
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. 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 take a look at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS).
Do Hedge Funds Think KEYS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 32 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 19% from the fourth quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in KEYS over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS) was held by Ariel Investments, which reported holding $99.3 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Giverny Capital with a $58.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Renaissance Technologies, Two Sigma Advisors, and PEAK6 Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Giverny Capital allocated the biggest weight to Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS), around 3.91% of its 13F portfolio. Claar Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 2.5 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to KEYS.
Consequently, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, established the most outsized position in Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS). Marshall Wace LLP had $31.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners also made a $3.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Qing Li’s Sciencast Management, Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital, and Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS). These stocks are Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB), Weyerhaeuser Co. (NYSE:WY), SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ:SIVB), MPLX LP (NYSE:MPLX), CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), Royalty Pharma Plc (NASDAQ:RPRX), and Ecopetrol S.A. (NYSE:EC). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to KEYS’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| FITB | 38 | 401275 | -5 |
| WY | 38 | 641353 | -2 |
| SIVB | 49 | 1213261 | 18 |
| MPLX | 8 | 136195 | -5 |
| CBRE | 30 | 2600509 | -1 |
| RPRX | 26 | 1835240 | 8 |
| EC | 8 | 98728 | 1 |
| Average | 28.1 | 989509 | 2 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 28.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $990 million. That figure was $530 million in KEYS’s case. SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ:SIVB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand MPLX LP (NYSE:MPLX) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for KEYS is 58.5. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 22.8% in 2021 through July 2nd and beat the market again by 6 percentage points. Unfortunately KEYS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on KEYS were disappointed as the stock returned 6.8% since the end of March (through 7/2) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Keysight Technologies Inc. (NYSE:KEYS)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
