The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that crossed the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on June 28th. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of nearly 750 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP) based on those filings.
Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. CCEP has experienced a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with CCEP holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CCEP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the eyes of most traders, hedge funds are perceived as slow, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation today, Our experts hone in on the masters of this club, around 750 funds. These hedge fund managers oversee bulk of the smart money’s total asset base, and by tracking their finest stock picks, Insider Monkey has come up with a few investment strategies that have historically beaten the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outrun the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points a year since its inception in May 2014. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 25.7% since February 2017 (through September 30th) even though the market was up more than 33% during the same period. We just shared a list of 10 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Unlike some fund managers who are betting on Dow reaching 40000 in a year, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. We’re going to review the latest hedge fund action regarding Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP).
How have hedgies been trading Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP)?
Heading into the third quarter of 2019, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -23% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 22 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in CCEP a year ago. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP) was held by Arrowstreet Capital, which reported holding $34.7 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by D E Shaw with a $34.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included GLG Partners, Millennium Management, and Two Sigma Advisors.
Since Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP) has experienced falling interest from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of fund managers who sold off their full holdings in the second quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group sold off the largest position of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $36 million in stock. Andrew Feldstein and Stephen Siderow’s fund, Blue Mountain Capital, also dumped its stock, about $11.9 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds in the second quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP). These stocks are CRH PLC (NYSE:CRH), WEC Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE:WEC), Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT), and Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble CCEP’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRH | 7 | 78961 | 2 |
| WEC | 13 | 392685 | -2 |
| SPOT | 42 | 1748170 | -11 |
| GLW | 26 | 279452 | -11 |
| Average | 22 | 624817 | -5.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 22 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $625 million. That figure was $133 million in CCEP’s case. Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CRH PLC (NYSE:CRH) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Coca-Cola European Partners plc (NYSE:CCEP) 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. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Unfortunately CCEP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); CCEP investors were disappointed as the stock returned -1.9% during the third quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in 2019.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
