At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 873 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 June 30th. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) makes for a good investment right now.
Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) investors should pay attention to an increase in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) was in 36 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 32. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that BLMN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
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Keith Meister of Corvex Capital
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Do Hedge Funds Think BLMN Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At second quarter’s end, a total of 36 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 13% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 23 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BLMN a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Tremblant Capital was the largest shareholder of Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN), with a stake worth $84.7 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Tremblant Capital was Millennium Management, which amassed a stake valued at $80.2 million. Corvex Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, and Citadel Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Isomer Partners allocated the biggest weight to Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN), around 6.84% of its 13F portfolio. DG Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 4.07 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BLMN.
As one would reasonably expect, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, created the biggest position in Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN). Millennium Management had $80.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Leon Shaulov’s Maplelane Capital also made a $20.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Joseph Samuels’s Islet Management, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) but similarly valued. These stocks are Bally’s Corporation (NYSE:BALY), Rush Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:RUSHA), Afya Limited (NASDAQ:AFYA), Patria Investments Limited (NASDAQ:PAX), WesBanco, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBC), Heska Corp (NASDAQ:HSKA), and Edgewell Personal Care Company (NYSE:EPC). This group of stocks’ market values match BLMN’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BALY | 30 | 577022 | 12 |
| RUSHA | 17 | 88825 | 0 |
| AFYA | 6 | 54935 | 1 |
| PAX | 15 | 160240 | -4 |
| WSBC | 12 | 25390 | -4 |
| HSKA | 20 | 339971 | -8 |
| EPC | 20 | 203597 | 0 |
| Average | 17.1 | 207140 | -0.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $207 million. That figure was $625 million in BLMN’s case. Bally’s Corporation (NYSE:BALY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Afya Limited (NASDAQ:AFYA) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for BLMN is 89. 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 21.8% in 2021 through October 11th and still beat the market by 4.4 percentage points. Unfortunately BLMN wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on BLMN were disappointed as the stock returned -11.1% since the end of the second quarter (through 10/11) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
