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 Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) based on that data.
Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) has experienced a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money of late. Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) was in 33 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 50. Our calculations also showed that ODFL isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group
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 latest hedge fund action surrounding Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL).
Do Hedge Funds Think ODFL Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -30% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in ODFL over the last 25 quarters. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) was held by AQR Capital Management, which reported holding $256.5 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Echo Street Capital Management with a $140.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Bridgewater Associates, Citadel Investment Group, and Osterweis Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Aubrey Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL), around 2.17% of its 13F portfolio. Osterweis Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 2.07 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ODFL.
Because Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) has experienced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there were a few funds who were dropping their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management cut the biggest investment of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, valued at about $11.4 million in stock. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s fund, Two Sigma Advisors, also dumped its stock, about $8.1 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 14 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL). These stocks are Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT), Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS), Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN), CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM), Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK), and EPAM Systems Inc (NYSE:EPAM). This group of stocks’ market valuations match ODFL’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPRT | 42 | 998095 | -2 |
| PINS | 58 | 2006795 | -5 |
| WCN | 32 | 785747 | 0 |
| CBRE | 37 | 3096989 | 0 |
| AFRM | 39 | 1491413 | 14 |
| VRSK | 25 | 1638278 | -11 |
| EPAM | 42 | 945738 | 9 |
| Average | 39.3 | 1566151 | 0.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 39.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1566 million. That figure was $710 million in ODFL’s case. Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) is the least popular one with only 25 bullish hedge fund positions. Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ODFL is 22.9. 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 gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on ODFL as the stock returned 24.3% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
