Hedge Funds Are Warming Up To National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA)

Before we spend countless hours researching a company, we like to analyze what insiders, hedge funds and billionaire investors think of the stock first. This is a necessary first step in our investment process because our research has shown that the elite investors’ consensus returns have been exceptional. In the following paragraphs, we find out what the billionaire investors and hedge funds think of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).

Is National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) a buy, sell, or hold? Investors who are in the know were turning bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund positions improved by 1 in recent months. National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 21. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that NSA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings). There were 20 hedge funds in our database with NSA positions at the end of the second quarter.

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. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a look at the key hedge fund action regarding National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).

Ken Heebner of Capital Growth Management

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

At third quarter’s end, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 5% from the second quarter of 2021. On the other hand, there were a total of 19 hedge funds with a bullish position in NSA a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Millennium Management was the largest shareholder of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA), with a stake worth $72.1 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Millennium Management was Renaissance Technologies, which amassed a stake valued at $33.2 million. Two Sigma Advisors, GLG Partners, and Capital Growth 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 Capital Growth Management allocated the biggest weight to National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA), around 2.18% of its 13F portfolio. Precept Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.74 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NSA.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Precept Capital Management, managed by Blair Baker, assembled the biggest call position in National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA). Precept Capital Management had $1.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Blair Baker’s Precept Capital Management also made a $1.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new NSA investors: Jinghua Yan’s TwinBeech Capital and Renee Yao’s Neo Ivy Capital.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA). We will take a look at UMB Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:UMBF), PDC Energy Inc (NASDAQ:PDCE), MINISO Group Holding Limited (NYSE:MNSO), Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG), Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPR), New Relic Inc (NYSE:NEWR), and Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to NSA’s market value.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $497 million. That figure was $219 million in NSA’s case. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand MINISO Group Holding Limited (NYSE:MNSO) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for NSA is 54.5. 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 29.6% in 2021 and still beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on NSA as the stock returned 32% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/31) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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