The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on March 31st, about a week after the S&P 500 Index bottomed. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 821 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL) based on those filings.
HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund interest of late. Our calculations also showed that FUL 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.
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Jonathan Barrett of Luminus Management
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How have hedgies been trading HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 29% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in FUL over the last 18 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, P2 Capital Partners, managed by Claus Moller, holds the largest position in HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL). P2 Capital Partners has a $46.4 million position in the stock, comprising 5.5% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is GAMCO Investors, led by Mario Gabelli, holding a $14.4 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money with similar optimism include Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal’s Luminus Management, Asad Rahman and Aman Kapadia’s Akaris Global Partners and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position P2 Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL), around 5.55% of its 13F portfolio. Akaris Global Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 5.14 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FUL.
Consequently, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, initiated the biggest position in HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL). Millennium Management had $5.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also initiated a $2.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new FUL positions are Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, and Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL). These stocks are Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP), United Community Banks Inc (NASDAQ:UCBI), SPX Corporation (NYSE:SPXC), and Redfin Corporation (NASDAQ:RDFN). This group of stocks’ market valuations match FUL’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CXP | 17 | 50559 | -5 |
| UCBI | 11 | 28692 | -5 |
| SPXC | 14 | 47679 | -5 |
| RDFN | 20 | 106902 | 5 |
| Average | 15.5 | 58458 | -2.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 15.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $58 million. That figure was $124 million in FUL’s case. Redfin Corporation (NASDAQ:RDFN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand United Community Banks Inc (NASDAQ:UCBI) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL) 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 13.4% in 2020 through June 22nd but still beat the market by 15.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on FUL as the stock returned 53.1% in Q2 (through June 22nd) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
