Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (LAMR) Anymore

The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the first quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of March 31st. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR).

Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund interest in recent months. Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR) was in 35 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 44. Our calculations also showed that LAMR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still 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). We have been able to outperform the passive index funds by tracking the moves of corporate insiders and hedge funds, and we believe small investors can benefit a lot from reading hedge fund investor letters and 13F filings.

Richard Gerson of Falcon Edge Capital

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 battery 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 let’s go over the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR).

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

At the end of March, a total of 35 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -3% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards LAMR over the last 23 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Select Equity Group, managed by Robert Joseph Caruso, holds the largest position in Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR). Select Equity Group has a $87.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.3% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Falcon Edge Capital, led by Richard Gerson and Navroz D. Udwadia, holding a $59.3 million position; 3.7% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining members of the smart money that hold long positions contain Josh Resnick’s Jericho Capital Asset Management, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and Jeffrey Tannenbaum’s Fir Tree. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position LFL Advisers allocated the biggest weight to Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR), around 12.52% of its 13F portfolio. Falcon Edge Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 3.69 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LAMR.

Seeing as Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of money managers that elected to cut their full holdings in the first quarter. Interestingly, Edmond M. Safra’s EMS Capital dumped the largest stake of the 750 funds watched by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $50.6 million in stock. Kevin D. Eng’s fund, Columbus Hill Capital Management, also sold off its stock, about $29.7 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds in the first quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR). These stocks are AECOM (NYSE:ACM), Continental Resources, Inc. (NYSE:CLR), NiSource Inc. (NYSE:NI), Kohl’s Corporation (NYSE:KSS), Appian Corporation (NASDAQ:APPN), First Horizon Corporation (NYSE:FHN), and AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR). All of these stocks’ market caps match LAMR’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $619 million. That figure was $427 million in LAMR’s case. AECOM (NYSE:ACM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Lamar Advertising Company (REIT) (NASDAQ:LAMR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LAMR is 69.5. 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 19.3% in 2021 through June 25th and still beat the market by 4.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on LAMR, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 13.4% since Q1 (through June 25th) and outperformed the market as well.

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