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 Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK) based on those filings.
Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK) has seen a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. Our calculations also showed that ROCK isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (see the video below).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
According to most market participants, hedge funds are seen as underperforming, outdated financial vehicles of the past. While there are over 8000 funds trading at the moment, Our experts choose to focus on the aristocrats of this club, approximately 750 funds. These money managers shepherd most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by shadowing their first-class investments, Insider Monkey has found many investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy defeated the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points per annum 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 former hedge manager, Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, who is convinced Dow will soar past 40000, 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 take a peek at the recent hedge fund action regarding Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK).
Hedge fund activity in Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK)
At Q2’s end, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -29% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 11 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ROCK a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Pzena Investment Management held the most valuable stake in Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK), which was worth $41.6 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Headlands Capital which amassed $16 million worth of shares. Moreover, Royce & Associates, Renaissance Technologies, and D E Shaw were also bullish on Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.
Judging by the fact that Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK) has witnessed falling interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who were dropping their positions entirely in the second quarter. Interestingly, Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management said goodbye to the biggest investment of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, valued at about $1.1 million in stock, and Guy Shahar’s DSAM Partners was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.4 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds in the second quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK). We will take a look at Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. (NYSE:HLX), Saul Centers Inc (NYSE:BFS), Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI), and Accelerate Diagnostics Inc (NASDAQ:AXDX). This group of stocks’ market valuations match ROCK’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| HLX | 11 | 97055 | -5 |
| BFS | 9 | 41006 | -1 |
| HRI | 22 | 550489 | -6 |
| AXDX | 10 | 65894 | -1 |
| Average | 13 | 188611 | -3.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $189 million. That figure was $96 million in ROCK’s case. Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Saul Centers Inc (NYSE:BFS) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. 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. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on ROCK as the stock returned 13.8% during the same time frame and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
