As we already know from media reports and hedge fund investor letters, hedge funds delivered their best returns in a decade. Most investors who decided to stick with hedge funds after a rough 2018 recouped their losses by the end of the third quarter. We get to see hedge funds’ thoughts towards the market and individual stocks by aggregating their quarterly portfolio movements and reading their investor letters. In this article, we will particularly take a look at what hedge funds think about Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG).
Is Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG) a buy right now? Hedge funds are buying. The number of bullish hedge fund bets inched up by 1 recently. Our calculations also showed that BXG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). BXG was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with BXG positions at the end of the previous quarter.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? 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 Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (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 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Israel Englander of Millennium Management
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Discover is offering this insane cashback card, so we look into shorting the stock. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We even check out this option genius’ weekly trade ideas. This December, we recommended Adams Energy as a one-way bet based on an under-the-radar fund manager’s investor letter and the stock already gained 20 percent. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG).
How are hedge funds trading Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 17% from the second quarter of 2019. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards BXG over the last 17 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.
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Weiss Asset Management, managed by Andrew Weiss, holds the most valuable position in Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG). Weiss Asset Management has a $17.6 million position in the stock, comprising 1.4% of its 13F portfolio. On Weiss Asset Management’s heels is Ancora Advisors, managed by Frederick DiSanto, which holds a $1.2 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions consist of Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Weiss Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG), around 1.4% of its 13F portfolio. Ancora Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.05 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BXG.
Consequently, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. GLG Partners, managed by Noam Gottesman, assembled the largest position in Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG). GLG Partners had $0.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG) but similarly valued. These stocks are Quotient Technology Inc (NYSE:QUOT), Puxin Limited (NYSE:NEW), Cooper-Standard Holdings Inc (NYSE:CPS), and Kimbell Royalty Partners (NYSE:KRP). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to BXG’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| QUOT | 17 | 232074 | 4 |
| NEW | 5 | 7400 | 2 |
| CPS | 16 | 33640 | 1 |
| KRP | 5 | 15303 | 0 |
| Average | 10.75 | 72104 | 1.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $72 million. That figure was $21 million in BXG’s case. Quotient Technology Inc (NYSE:QUOT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Puxin Limited (NYSE:NEW) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Bluegreen Vacations Corporation (NYSE:BXG) 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 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on BXG, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 7.3% during the first two months of the fourth quarter and outperformed the market.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
