Hedge Funds Are Selling Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (VSH)

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 873 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH).

Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH) has experienced a decrease in hedge fund interest lately. Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH) was in 29 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 32. There were 32 hedge funds in our database with VSH holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that VSH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 79 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Israel Englander of Millennium Management

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. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a look at the latest hedge fund action encompassing Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH).

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

Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -9% from the first quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 28 hedge funds with a bullish position in VSH 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, Fisher Asset Management was the largest shareholder of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH), with a stake worth $87.7 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Fisher Asset Management was Royce & Associates, which amassed a stake valued at $84.3 million. Woodline Partners, Millennium Management, and AQR Capital Management 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 Mountaineer Partners Management allocated the biggest weight to Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH), around 7.84% of its 13F portfolio. Divisar Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 3.25 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VSH.

Judging by the fact that Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH) has experienced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there was a specific group of funds that slashed their full holdings heading into Q3. At the top of the heap, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management dropped the largest investment of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $93.4 million in stock. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s fund, Marshall Wace LLP, also said goodbye to its stock, about $13.5 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds heading into Q3.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH) but similarly valued. These stocks are PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG), Casella Waste Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CWST), Ingevity Corporation (NYSE:NGVT), Prospect Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:PSEC), Kontoor Brands, Inc. (NYSE:KTB), Liberty Latin America Ltd. (NASDAQ:LILA), and Vertex, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERX). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to VSH’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $180 million. That figure was $500 million in VSH’s case. PROG Holdings Inc (NYSE:PRG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vertex, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERX) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VSH is 65.4. 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 24.9% in 2021 through October 15th and beat the market again by 4.5 percentage points. Unfortunately VSH wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VSH were disappointed as the stock returned -13.4% since the end of June (through 10/15) 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.