We at Insider Monkey have gone over 867 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 September 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) based on that data.
Is Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) ready to rally soon? Money managers were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions increased by 1 in recent months. Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) was in 46 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 46. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that EQH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). There were 45 hedge funds in our database with EQH holdings at the end of June.
Richard S. Pzena of Pzena Investment Management
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so 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. Keeping this in mind let’s go over the key hedge fund action encompassing Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH).
Do Hedge Funds Think EQH Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of September, a total of 46 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 2% from the second quarter of 2021. By comparison, 36 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in EQH a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) was held by Pzena Investment Management, which reported holding $656 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Sessa Capital with a $127.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Citadel Investment Group, Point72 Asset Management, and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Soapstone Capital allocated the biggest weight to Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH), around 14.01% of its 13F portfolio. Sessa Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 6.25 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to EQH.
As aggregate interest increased, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Samlyn Capital, managed by Robert Pohly, created the most outsized position in Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH). Samlyn Capital had $41.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital also made a $9.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new EQH positions are Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Jinghua Yan’s TwinBeech Capital, and Gregg Moskowitz’s Interval Partners.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH). These stocks are DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA), Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE:NLY), Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:JKHY), Ares Management Corp (NYSE:ARES), Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR), NovoCure Limited (NASDAQ:NVCR), and Papa Murphy’s Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:FRSH). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to EQH’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| DVA | 39 | 4811137 | 0 |
| NLY | 15 | 34941 | -4 |
| JKHY | 21 | 200996 | -1 |
| ARES | 22 | 727606 | 2 |
| PNR | 24 | 844523 | -1 |
| NVCR | 23 | 241286 | -2 |
| FRSH | 41 | 316230 | 41 |
| Average | 26.4 | 1025246 | 5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 26.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1025 million. That figure was $1704 million in EQH’s case. Papa Murphy’s Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:FRSH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE:NLY) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for EQH is 86. 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 returned 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th but still managed to beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on EQH as the stock returned 6.7% since the end of September (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
