The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS).
Is Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) a worthy stock to buy now? Prominent investors are in a bullish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund positions increased by 1 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that CNS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). CNS was in 16 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2019. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with CNS holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
If you’d ask most investors, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, old financial vehicles of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at the moment, We look at the moguls of this group, approximately 750 funds. These money managers have their hands on most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by observing their unrivaled picks, Insider Monkey has revealed many investment strategies that have historically outrun the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year since its inception in May 2014. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.8% since February 2017 (through November 21st) even though the market was up more than 39% during the same period. We just shared a list of 7 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
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. 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 also rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS).
Hedge fund activity in Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS)
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 16 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 7% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CNS 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.
Among these funds, GAMCO Investors held the most valuable stake in Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS), which was worth $41.7 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Royce & Associates which amassed $17.5 million worth of shares. Arrowstreet Capital, Renaissance Technologies, and Two Sigma Advisors 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 Zebra Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS), around 0.91% of its 13F portfolio. GAMCO Investors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.35 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CNS.
Now, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, assembled the most valuable position in Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS). Balyasny Asset Management had $1.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Brandon Haley’s Holocene Advisors also made a $1.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new CNS position is Mike Vranos’s Ellington.
Let’s now review 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 Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI), Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB), AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX), and South State Corporation (NASDAQ:SSB). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to CNS’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CCOI | 26 | 303103 | 8 |
| INDB | 12 | 20276 | 1 |
| AVX | 13 | 68575 | 2 |
| SSB | 17 | 30763 | 3 |
| Average | 17 | 105679 | 3.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $106 million. That figure was $76 million in CNS’s case. Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB) is the least popular one with only 12 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 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 CNS as the stock returned 26.7% during the first two months of Q4 and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
