The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the March quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN).
Is Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN) a sound stock to buy now? Hedge funds are in a bullish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund bets advanced by 1 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that HMN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
If you’d ask most traders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, outdated investment tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, Our researchers choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this club, approximately 750 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people have their hands on the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by tracking their finest picks, Insider Monkey has come up with several investment strategies that have historically outstripped the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points a year since its inception in May 2014 through June 18th. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 28.2% since February 2017 (through June 18th) even though the market was up nearly 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 5 short targets in our latest quarterly update and they are already down an average of 8.2% in a month whereas our long picks outperformed the market by 2.5 percentage points in this volatile 5 week period (our long picks also beat the market by 15 percentage points so far this year).
Let’s take a peek at the recent hedge fund action surrounding Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN).
Hedge fund activity in Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN)
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 8% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards HMN over the last 15 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Ariel Investments held the most valuable stake in Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN), which was worth $8.6 million at the end of the first quarter. On the second spot was Renaissance Technologies which amassed $6.3 million worth of shares. Moreover, GLG Partners, Citadel Investment Group, and Two Sigma Advisors were also bullish on Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.
As one would reasonably expect, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Laurion Capital Management, managed by Benjamin A. Smith, established the biggest position in Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN). Laurion Capital Management had $0.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Minhua Zhang’s Weld Capital Management also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new HMN position is Mike Vranos’s Ellington.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN). We will take a look at Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc (NYSE:DO), Universal Corp (NYSE:UVV), Talos Energy, Inc. (NYSE:TALO), and Evoqua Water Technologies Corp. (NYSE:AQUA). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to HMN’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| DO | 18 | 66179 | 2 |
| UVV | 17 | 104058 | 2 |
| TALO | 17 | 92558 | 4 |
| AQUA | 13 | 105564 | 1 |
| Average | 16.25 | 92090 | 2.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 16.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $92 million. That figure was $28 million in HMN’s case. Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc (NYSE:DO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Evoqua Water Technologies Corp. (NYSE:AQUA) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on HMN as the stock returned 19.4% during the same time frame and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
