Hedge Funds Are Nibbling On Ingredion Incorporated (INGR)

Last year we predicted the arrival of the first US recession since 2009 and we told in advance that the market will decline by at least 20% in (Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW). In these volatile markets we scrutinize hedge fund filings to get a reading on which direction each stock might be going. In this article, we will take a closer look at hedge fund sentiment towards Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR).

Is Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) a buy, sell, or hold? Prominent investors were betting on the stock. The number of bullish hedge fund bets inched up by 1 in recent months. Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 29. Our calculations also showed that INGR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). There were 24 hedge funds in our database with INGR positions at the end of the fourth quarter.

To most traders, hedge funds are viewed as underperforming, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are over 8000 funds trading today, Our experts choose to focus on the leaders of this group, approximately 850 funds. These money managers control the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by watching their highest performing equity investments, Insider Monkey has found several investment strategies that have historically surpassed the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points annually since its inception in March 2017. Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .

Bernard Horn of Polaris Capital Management

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, economists warn of inflation flare up. So, we are checking out this backdoor gold play that has hit peak gains of 718% in a little over a year. We go through lists like the 10 best battery 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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind we’re going to go over the recent hedge fund action surrounding Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR).

Do Hedge Funds Think INGR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of March, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 4% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards INGR over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) was held by Yacktman Asset Management, which reported holding $237.6 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by AQR Capital Management with a $64.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Polaris Capital Management, Millennium Management, and D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Yacktman Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR), around 2.48% of its 13F portfolio. Polaris Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 1.66 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to INGR.

Now, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Renaissance Technologies, initiated the most valuable position in Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR). Renaissance Technologies had $10.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jinghua Yan’s TwinBeech Capital also made a $1.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, Hoon Kim’s Quantinno Capital, and Eric Sprott’s Sprott Asset Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) but similarly valued. These stocks are Healthcare Trust Of America Inc (NYSE:HTA), Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST), Olin Corporation (NYSE:OLN), KT Corporation (NYSE:KT), Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX), Ardagh Group S.A. (NYSE:ARD), and Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN). This group of stocks’ market values resemble INGR’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 21.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $446 million. That figure was $455 million in INGR’s case. Olin Corporation (NYSE:OLN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ardagh Group S.A. (NYSE:ARD) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for INGR is 62.3. 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 24% in 2021 through July 9th and beat the market again by 6.7 percentage points. Unfortunately INGR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on INGR were disappointed as the stock returned 4.5% since the end of March (through 7/9) 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.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.