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 Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX).
Is Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) a great stock to buy now? The smart money is becoming more confident. The number of bullish hedge fund bets inched up by 3 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that CLGX 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.
According to most shareholders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, outdated investment tools of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, Our experts look at the leaders of this club, about 850 funds. These money managers administer bulk of the smart money’s total asset base, and by following their inimitable stock picks, Insider Monkey has found numerous investment strategies that have historically defeated the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points annually since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
David E. Shaw of D.E. Shaw
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out trades like this one. 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. Now let’s take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX).
What have hedge funds been doing with Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 31 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 11% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CLGX over the last 18 quarters. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, D E Shaw was the largest shareholder of Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX), with a stake worth $76.4 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing D E Shaw was Fisher Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $46.7 million. Nitorum Capital, Renaissance Technologies, and Millennium 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 Nitorum Capital allocated the biggest weight to Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX), around 3.33% of its 13F portfolio. Blue Grotto Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 2.99 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CLGX.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Engineers Gate Manager, managed by Greg Eisner, assembled the most outsized position in Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX). Engineers Gate Manager had $1.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mike Vranos’s Ellington also initiated a $0.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Qing Li’s Sciencast Management, Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners, and Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX). We will take a look at Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC), Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN), F.N.B. Corp (NYSE:FNB), and Umpqua Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UMPQ). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to CLGX’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BRC | 10 | 140433 | -5 |
| JWN | 25 | 72883 | -5 |
| FNB | 24 | 63920 | 1 |
| UMPQ | 23 | 183885 | 7 |
| Average | 20.5 | 115280 | -0.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $115 million. That figure was $253 million in CLGX’s case. Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) is more popular among hedge funds. 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 returned 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May but still managed to beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CLGX as the stock returned 63% so far in Q2 (through the end of May) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
