We are still in an overall bull market and many stocks that smart money investors were piling into surged through the end of November. Among them, Facebook and Microsoft ranked among the top 3 picks and these stocks gained 54% and 51% respectively. Hedge funds’ top 3 stock picks returned 41.7% this year and beat the S&P 500 ETFs by 14 percentage points. Investing in index funds guarantees you average returns, not superior returns. We are looking to generate superior returns for our readers. That’s why we believe it isn’t a waste of time to check out hedge fund sentiment before you invest in a stock like Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX).
Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) was in 16 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2019. BRX has experienced an increase in hedge fund sentiment lately. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with BRX holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that BRX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the eyes of most investors, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, old investment tools of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, Our experts look at the aristocrats of this club, approximately 750 funds. These investment experts direct bulk of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by paying attention to their unrivaled picks, Insider Monkey has discovered many investment strategies that have historically outperformed the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year since its inception in May 2014. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.8% since February 2017 (through November 21st) even though the market was up more than 39% during the same period. We just shared a list of 7 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies
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. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We also rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s go over the latest hedge fund action regarding Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX).
How are hedge funds trading Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2019, a total of 16 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 7% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 18 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BRX 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.
The largest stake in Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $85.1 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Two Sigma Advisors with a $9.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included D E Shaw, Arrowstreet Capital, and AQR Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Neo Ivy Capital allocated the biggest weight to Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX), around 0.43% of its 13F portfolio. Weld Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.32 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BRX.
As aggregate interest increased, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, initiated the most outsized position in Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX). Arrowstreet Capital had $4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Minhua Zhang’s Weld Capital Management also made a $1.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Perella Weinberg Partners, Renee Yao’s Neo Ivy Capital, and Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Healthcare Trust Of America Inc (NYSE:HTA), Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS), Ares Management L.P. (NYSE:ARES), and Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to BRX’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| HTA | 18 | 270702 | 5 |
| ZS | 20 | 133861 | -5 |
| ARES | 17 | 222255 | 7 |
| MLNX | 39 | 1506689 | 0 |
| Average | 23.5 | 533377 | 1.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $533 million. That figure was $119 million in BRX’s case. Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ares Management L.P. (NYSE:ARES) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) is even less popular than ARES. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on BRX, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 9.6% during the fourth quarter (through 11/30) and outperformed the market as well.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
