Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Cohen & Steers, Inc. (CNS)

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 Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) based on those filings.

Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) has seen an increase in enthusiasm from smart money of late. CNS was in 20 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with CNS positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CNS 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 large number of indicators stock traders can use to evaluate publicly traded companies. Some of the less known indicators are hedge fund and insider trading interest. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top investment managers can outpace the broader indices by a solid margin (see the details here).

Richard Driehaus of Driehaus Capital

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. We take a look at lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to identify the compounders that are likely to deliver double digit returns. 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. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a peek at the latest hedge fund action surrounding Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS).

How have hedgies been trading Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS)?

Heading into the second quarter of 2020, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 25% from the fourth quarter of 2019. On the other hand, there were a total of 9 hedge funds with a bullish position in CNS a year ago. So, let’s see 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, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors has the biggest position in Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS), worth close to $26.3 million, comprising 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $8.6 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers that hold long positions contain Ravi Chopra’s Azora Capital, Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Azora Capital allocated the biggest weight to Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS), around 1.94% of its 13F portfolio. Zebra Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 1.28 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CNS.

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Azora Capital, managed by Ravi Chopra, created the most outsized position in Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS). Azora Capital had $5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital also initiated a $4.6 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CNS investors: Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, and Mika Toikka’s AlphaCrest Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Rapid7 Inc (NASDAQ:RPD), FGL Holdings (NYSE:FG), Tenable Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TENB), and iRhythm Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:IRTC). This group of stocks’ market valuations match CNS’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $193 million. That figure was $67 million in CNS’s case. FGL Holdings (NYSE:FG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand iRhythm Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:IRTC) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) 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 12.2% in 2020 through June 17th and still beat the market by 14.8 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on CNS as the stock returned 60.9% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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