Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (CHRW)

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the first quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 4.5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) based on that data.

C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) was in 32 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. CHRW investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with CHRW holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CHRW 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.

Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 51 percentage points since March 2017 (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 36% through May 18th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management

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 check out the new hedge fund action encompassing C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW).

Hedge fund activity in C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW)

At Q1’s end, a total of 32 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 33% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 30 hedge funds with a bullish position in CHRW a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, AQR Capital Management held the most valuable stake in C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW), which was worth $66.1 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Two Sigma Advisors which amassed $44.6 million worth of shares. D E Shaw, Citadel Investment Group, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Cognios Capital allocated the biggest weight to C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW), around 0.86% of its 13F portfolio. Quantamental Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.63 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CHRW.

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have jumped into C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) headfirst. Renaissance Technologies,  created the most outsized position in C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW). Renaissance Technologies had $15.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management also initiated a $6.6 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CHRW investors: Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW). We will take a look at Principal Financial Group Inc (NYSE:PFG), DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY), ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAC), and Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE:RF). This group of stocks’ market values resemble CHRW’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 37 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $576 million. That figure was $248 million in CHRW’s case. ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Principal Financial Group Inc (NYSE:PFG) is the least popular one with only 27 bullish hedge fund positions. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. 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 still beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on CHRW as the stock returned 22.6% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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