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 Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) changed recently.
Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) has experienced a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) was in 63 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 80. There were 70 hedge funds in our database with LBRDK holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that LBRDK isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 79 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. 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. 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a peek at the latest hedge fund action regarding Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK).
Do Hedge Funds Think LBRDK Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 63 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -10% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards LBRDK over the last 24 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Eagle Capital Management held the most valuable stake in Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), which was worth $1587 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Aristeia Capital which amassed $809.4 million worth of shares. Soros Fund Management, FPR Partners, and Stockbridge Partners 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 Makaira Partners allocated the biggest weight to Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), around 31.67% of its 13F portfolio. Manor Road Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 28.69 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LBRDK.
Seeing as Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few hedgies who were dropping their positions entirely heading into Q3. Interestingly, Renaissance Technologies dumped the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $39.8 million in stock. Martin D. Sass’s fund, MD Sass, also sold off its stock, about $24.9 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 7 funds heading into Q3.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK). We will take a look at STMicroelectronics N.V. (NYSE:STM), CoStar Group Inc (NASDAQ:CSGP), Corteva, Inc. (NYSE:CTVA), D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE:DHI), Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB), Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD), and ArcelorMittal (NYSE:MT). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble LBRDK’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| STM | 13 | 159058 | -2 |
| CSGP | 49 | 2816593 | 6 |
| CTVA | 34 | 1283913 | -1 |
| DHI | 45 | 1886955 | -5 |
| WMB | 39 | 551010 | 5 |
| MTD | 35 | 1267774 | 8 |
| MT | 22 | 1044502 | 1 |
| Average | 33.9 | 1287115 | 1.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 33.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1287 million. That figure was $7386 million in LBRDK’s case. CoStar Group Inc (NASDAQ:CSGP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand STMicroelectronics N.V. (NYSE:STM) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LBRDK is 71.6. 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. 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 25.7% in 2021 through September 27th and still beat the market by 6.2 percentage points. Unfortunately LBRDK wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on LBRDK were disappointed as the stock returned 0.1% since the end of the second quarter (through 9/27) 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.
Follow Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDA)
Follow Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDA)
Suggested Articles:
- Top 15 Financial Centers/Cities of The World
- 20 Biggest Black-Owned Companies in America
- 20 largest european companies by market cap
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
