Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (KGC) Anymore

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and famous investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds and investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find write-ups about an individual hedge fund’s trades on several financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves and analyze what the smart money thinks of Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC) based on that data.

Is Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC) a bargain? The smart money is becoming less hopeful. The number of long hedge fund positions were cut by 5 recently. At the end of this article we will also compare KGC to other stocks including Jacobs Engineering Group Inc (NYSE:JEC), The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTI), and Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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With all of this in mind, let’s check out the recent action encompassing Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC).

Hedge fund activity in Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC)

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a decline of 16% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

HedgeFundSentimentChart

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Crispin Odey’s Odey Asset Management Group has the most valuable position in Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC), worth close to $151.4 million, comprising 10.9% of its total 13F portfolio. On Odey Asset Management Group’s heels is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $143.2 million position. Other professional money managers that are bullish include Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management and David Iben’s Kopernik Global Investors.

Due to the fact that Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC) has faced declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there were a few money managers who sold off their full holdings in the third quarter. Interestingly, Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management cut the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $18.1 million in stock, and Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $12.9 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 5 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC). These stocks are Jacobs Engineering Group Inc (NYSE:JEC), The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTI), Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO), and FMC Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FTI). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to KGC’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
JEC 17 147916 -1
ULTI 18 155448 3
APO 21 272595 3
FTI 42 1021252 5

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $399 million. That figure was $634 million in KGC’s case. FMC Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FTI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Jacobs Engineering Group Inc (NYSE:JEC) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard FTI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: None