Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Boston Properties, Inc. (BXP)

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 Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) based on those filings.

Is Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) a cheap stock to buy now? The best stock pickers are becoming hopeful. The number of long hedge fund positions rose by 9 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that BXP 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.

Today there are a lot of formulas stock traders can use to size up their stock investments. Two of the most under-the-radar formulas are hedge fund and insider trading interest. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top hedge fund managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see the details here).

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 as well as this tiny lithium play. 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. Keeping this in mind let’s take a look at the latest hedge fund action regarding Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP).

What does smart money think about Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP)?

Heading into the second quarter of 2020, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 45% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 27 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BXP a year ago. 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, Renaissance Technologies, holds the largest position in Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP). Renaissance Technologies has a $36.8 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Citadel Investment Group, led by Ken Griffin, holding a $35.4 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers that hold long positions encompass D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Welch Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP), around 2.29% of its 13F portfolio. AlphaCrest Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.42 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BXP.

As aggregate interest increased, some big names have jumped into Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) headfirst. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, initiated the largest position in Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP). Marshall Wace LLP had $2.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Heebner’s Capital Growth Management also initiated a $1.8 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BXP investors: Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital, and Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) but similarly valued. These stocks are Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN), Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE:CAG), First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC), and Altice USA, Inc. (NYSE:ATUS). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to BXP’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 33 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1061 million. That figure was $185 million in BXP’s case. Altice USA, Inc. (NYSE:ATUS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN) is the least popular one with only 27 bullish hedge fund positions. Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May and surpassed the market by 13.2 percentage points. Unfortunately BXP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); BXP investors were disappointed as the stock returned -6.8% during the second quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.