Hedge Funds Aren’t Done Buying Amphenol Corporation (APH)

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 Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH).

Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH) investors should pay attention to an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers lately. Our calculations also showed that APH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the financial world there are plenty of tools investors have at their disposal to appraise their stock investments. A couple of the most underrated tools are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can outpace the broader indices by a healthy amount (see the details here).

Steven Cohen of Point72 Asset Management

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we are still not out of the woods in terms of the coronavirus pandemic. So, we checked out this successful trader’s “corona catalyst plays“. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind we’re going to go over the recent hedge fund action surrounding Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH).

What have hedge funds been doing with Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 42 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 17% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in APH over the last 18 quarters. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Select Equity Group, managed by Robert Joseph Caruso, holds the largest position in Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH). Select Equity Group has a $344.6 million position in the stock, comprising 2.4% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw, with a $39.9 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other members of the smart money that are bullish encompass Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Michael Rockefeller and KarláKroeker’s Woodline Partners and Renaissance Technologies. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Ayrshire Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH), around 2.76% of its 13F portfolio. Woodline Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 2.41 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to APH.

As aggregate interest increased, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Alyeska Investment Group, managed by Anand Parekh, initiated the biggest position in Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH). Alyeska Investment Group had $16.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also initiated a $11.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new APH positions are Mikal Patel’s Oribel Capital Management, Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH). We will take a look at Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW), Otis Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:OTIS), FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE), and The Clorox Company (NYSE:CLX). This group of stocks’ market valuations match APH’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $986 million. That figure was $604 million in APH’s case. FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Otis Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:OTIS) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May but still beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on APH as the stock returned 32.5% in Q2 (through the end of May) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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