At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 867 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of September 30th. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) makes for a good investment right now.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) was in 40 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 63. Our calculations also showed that LVS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
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 we’re going to review the new hedge fund action regarding Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS).
Parag Vora of HG Vora Capital Management
Do Hedge Funds Think LVS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q3’s end, a total of 40 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -17% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in LVS over the last 25 quarters. 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 Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) was held by D E Shaw, which reported holding $326.1 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Citadel Investment Group with a $188.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Long Pond Capital, Long Pond Capital, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Long Pond Capital allocated the biggest weight to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), around 5.83% of its 13F portfolio. Long Pond Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 5.74 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LVS.
Seeing as Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) has faced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies that elected to cut their full holdings heading into Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital Management said goodbye to the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling about $284.5 million in call options, and Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $187.1 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 8 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS). We will take a look at Yandex NV (NASDAQ:YNDX), Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF), WEC Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE:WEC), Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY), Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ:ZBRA), PACCAR Inc (NASDAQ:PCAR), and Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to LVS’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| YNDX | 27 | 1432186 | -4 |
| SYF | 35 | 1376950 | -4 |
| WEC | 31 | 432498 | 4 |
| OXY | 60 | 3189745 | 3 |
| ZBRA | 39 | 1304604 | 5 |
| PCAR | 26 | 472066 | -2 |
| DAL | 50 | 1217986 | 1 |
| Average | 38.3 | 1346576 | 0.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 38.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1347 million. That figure was $938 million in LVS’s case. Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand PACCAR Inc (NASDAQ:PCAR) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LVS is 36.6. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately LVS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on LVS were disappointed as the stock returned -2.7% since the end of September (through 11/30) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Las Vegas Sands Corp (NYSE:LVS)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
