We at Insider Monkey have gone over 821 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, near the height of the coronavirus market crash. In this article, we look at what those funds think of DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA) based on that data.
Is DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA) the right pick for your portfolio? Money managers are becoming more confident. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 5 lately. Our calculations also showed that DVA 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.
So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 44 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 underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter. Even if you aren’t comfortable with shorting stocks, you should at least avoid initiating long positions in stocks that are in our short portfolio.
Jeffrey Gates of Gates Capital
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we are still not out of the woods in terms of the coronavirus pandemic. So, we checked out this successful trader’s “corona catalyst plays“. 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action regarding DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA).
Hedge fund activity in DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA)
At Q1’s end, a total of 43 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 13% from the fourth quarter of 2019. By comparison, 36 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in DVA a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Berkshire Hathaway held the most valuable stake in DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA), which was worth $2897.5 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was PAR Capital Management which amassed $316.3 million worth of shares. DPM Capital, Gates Capital Management, and Renaissance Technologies 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 DPM Capital allocated the biggest weight to DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA), around 83.23% of its 13F portfolio. PAR Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 13.43 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to DVA.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, established the biggest position in DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA). Citadel Investment Group had $48.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Michael Rockefeller and KarláKroeker’s Woodline Partners also initiated a $9.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Richard SchimeláandáLawrence Sapanski’s Cinctive Capital Management, and Nathan Przybylo’s L2 Asset Management.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA) but similarly valued. These stocks are Masimo Corporation (NASDAQ:MASI), BeiGene, Ltd. (NASDAQ:BGNE), Qiagen NV (NYSE:QGEN), and NVR, Inc. (NYSE:NVR). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to DVA’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| MASI | 31 | 156950 | 1 |
| BGNE | 11 | 2174312 | -5 |
| QGEN | 30 | 341681 | -21 |
| NVR | 34 | 744980 | 4 |
| Average | 26.5 | 854481 | -5.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 26.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $854 million. That figure was $3658 million in DVA’s case. NVR, Inc. (NYSE:NVR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BeiGene, Ltd. (NASDAQ:BGNE) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks DaVita Inc (NYSE:DVA) is more popular among hedge funds. 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. Unfortunately DVA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on DVA were disappointed as the stock returned 6.4% during the second quarter (through the end of May) 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.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
