Hedge Funds Are Piling Into S&P Global Inc. (SPGI)

Many prominent investors, including Warren Buffett, David Tepper and Stan Druckenmiller, have been cautious regarding the current bull market and missed out as the stock market reached another high in recent weeks. On the other hand, technology hedge funds weren’t timid and registered double digit market beating gains. Financials, energy and industrial stocks initially suffered the most but many of these stocks delivered strong returns since November and hedge funds actually increased their positions in these stocks. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment towards S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI) changed recently.

Is S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI) a splendid stock to buy now? The best stock pickers were becoming more confident. The number of long hedge fund bets increased by 7 in recent months. S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI) was in 78 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic was previously 76. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its new all time high. Our calculations also showed that SPGI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). There were 71 hedge funds in our database with SPGI holdings at the end of June.

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. Now let’s go over the new hedge fund action surrounding S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI).

William Von Mueffling of Cantillon Capital Management

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

At third quarter’s end, a total of 78 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 10% from the second quarter of 2021. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in SPGI over the last 25 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, TCI Fund Management held the most valuable stake in S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI), which was worth $2045.2 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Cantillon Capital Management which amassed $988.9 million worth of shares. Valley Forge Capital, Citadel Investment Group, and Third Point 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 Rings Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI), around 45.2% of its 13F portfolio. Valley Forge Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 21.55 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SPGI.

As one would reasonably expect, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Junto Capital Management, managed by James Parsons, created the most valuable position in S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI). Junto Capital Management had $113.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mikal Patel’s Oribel Capital Management also made a $72.8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new SPGI positions are Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, Sahm Adrangi’s Kerrisdale Capital, and Mikal Patel’s Oribel Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI). These stocks are 3M Company (NYSE:MMM), Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB), Stryker Corporation (NYSE:SYK), Atlassian Corporation Plc (NASDAQ:TEAM), Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG), GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE:GSK), and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to SPGI’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 55.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3594 million. That figure was $7037 million in SPGI’s case. Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE:GSK) is the least popular one with only 31 bullish hedge fund positions. S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SPGI is 76.2. 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. Hedge funds were also right about betting on SPGI as the stock returned 7.4% since the end of Q3 (through 11/30) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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