We at Insider Monkey have gone over 866 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) based on that data.
Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) investors should pay attention to a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) was in 42 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 49. Our calculations also showed that VOYA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can’t expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds’ moves today.
Robert Pohly of Samlyn Capital
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation, which is why we are checking out this inflation play. We go through lists like 10 best gold stocks to buy to identify promising stocks. 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 review the latest hedge fund action regarding Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA).
Do Hedge Funds Think VOYA Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At first quarter’s end, a total of 42 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -5% from the fourth quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 32 hedge funds with a bullish position in VOYA 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.
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management has the most valuable position in Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA), worth close to $299.2 million, accounting for 1.2% of its total 13F portfolio. On Pzena Investment Management’s heels is Samlyn Capital, managed by Robert Pohly, which holds a $229.3 million position; the fund has 3.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that are bullish consist of Michael A. Price and Amos Meron’s Empyrean Capital Partners, Ian Simm’s Impax Asset Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Empyrean Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA), around 3.78% of its 13F portfolio. Arctis Global is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 3.68 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VOYA.
Since Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) has faced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few funds that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. At the top of the heap, Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors dropped the largest investment of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $13.4 million in stock, and Daniel Johnson’s Gillson Capital was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $10.7 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds last quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) but similarly valued. These stocks are Luminar Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:LAZR), ITT Inc. (NYSE:ITT), Jabil Inc. (NYSE:JBL), Yatsen Holding Limited (NYSE:YSG), Concentrix Corporation (NASDAQ:CNXC), Ternium S.A. (NYSE:TX), and Fiverr International Ltd. (NYSE:FVRR). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to VOYA’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LAZR | 12 | 39243 | -13 |
| ITT | 18 | 264004 | -10 |
| JBL | 24 | 466622 | -4 |
| YSG | 20 | 224997 | -6 |
| CNXC | 23 | 576745 | 2 |
| TX | 14 | 203694 | 1 |
| FVRR | 27 | 398791 | -2 |
| Average | 19.7 | 310585 | -4.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 19.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $311 million. That figure was $1031 million in VOYA’s case. Fiverr International Ltd. (NYSE:FVRR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Luminar Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:LAZR) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VOYA is 78.7. 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 17.4% in 2021 through June 18th and still beat the market by 6.1 percentage points. Unfortunately VOYA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VOYA were disappointed as the stock returned -6.4% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/18) 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 Voya Financial Inc. (NYSE:VOYA)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
