A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on 21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET) .
21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET) was in 9 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. VNET has seen a decrease in hedge fund sentiment recently. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with VNET holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare VNET to other stocks including Del Taco Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:TACO), KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW), and Intersect ENT Inc (NASDAQ:XENT) to get a better sense of its popularity.
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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With all of this in mind, let’s view the key action encompassing 21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET).
How have hedgies been trading 21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a drop of 18% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards VNET over the last 5 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Citadel Investment Group, led by Ken Griffin, holds the largest position in 21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET). Citadel Investment Group has a $1.2 million call position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Millennium Management, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, which holds a $1.1 million position; less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions consist of D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners and David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
Due to the fact that 21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET) has weathered bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers who were dropping their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Frank Brosens’ Taconic Capital got rid of the largest investment of the 700 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth close to $11.7 million in stock. Jim Simons’ fund, Renaissance Technologies, also dumped its stock, about $7.4 million worth.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as 21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Del Taco Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:TACO), KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW), Intersect ENT Inc (NASDAQ:XENT), and Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to VNET’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TACO | 15 | 79942 | 1 |
| KEYW | 9 | 12250 | 4 |
| XENT | 13 | 67784 | 3 |
| VICR | 6 | 14868 | -2 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $44 million. That figure was $5 million in VNET’s case. Del Taco Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:TACO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. 21Vianet Group Inc (NASDAQ:VNET) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard TACO might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: None
