At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 750 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of March 31. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS) makes for a good investment right now.
Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS) investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months. Our calculations also showed that bms isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 30.9% through May 30, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Let’s take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS).
Hedge fund activity in Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS)
At Q1’s end, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 12% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 15 hedge funds with a bullish position in BMS a year ago. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Magnetar Capital, managed by Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser, holds the largest position in Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS). Magnetar Capital has a $51.7 million position in the stock, comprising 1.3% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Greg Poole of Echo Street Capital Management, with a $29.8 million position; the fund has 0.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions consist of Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Manoj JaináandáSohit Khurana’s Maso Capital and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management.
Consequently, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Maso Capital, managed by Manoj JaináandáSohit Khurana, assembled the most valuable position in Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS). Maso Capital had $26.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners also made a $16.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BMS investors: Michel Massoud’s Melqart Asset Management, David Alexander Witkin’s Beryl Capital Management, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS). We will take a look at Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK), MKS Instruments, Inc. (NASDAQ:MKSI), Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP), and IDACORP Inc (NYSE:IDA). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to BMS’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHK | 20 | 179653 | 5 |
| MKSI | 22 | 559663 | -8 |
| BPOP | 33 | 776860 | 1 |
| IDA | 18 | 243743 | -2 |
| Average | 23.25 | 439980 | -1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $440 million. That figure was $373 million in BMS’s case. Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand IDACORP Inc (NYSE:IDA) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 1.9% in Q2 through May 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on BMS as the stock returned 2.1% during the same period and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
