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 Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC).
Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) shareholders have witnessed an increase in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. GNRC was in 30 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2019. There were 25 hedge funds in our database with GNRC positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that GNRC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the eyes of most shareholders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, outdated financial vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds with their doors open today, Our researchers hone in on the leaders of this group, approximately 750 funds. These money managers handle most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by monitoring their best equity investments, Insider Monkey has found numerous investment strategies that have historically defeated the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points annually 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 .
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s take a glance at the new hedge fund action surrounding Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC).
Hedge fund activity in Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC)
At Q3’s end, a total of 30 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 20% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 24 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in GNRC a year ago. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) was held by Impax Asset Management, which reported holding $99.5 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Alyeska Investment Group with a $49.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Ariel Investments, Arrowstreet Capital, and Royce & Associates. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position G2 Investment Partners Management allocated the biggest weight to Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC), around 1.39% of its portfolio. Impax Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.3 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GNRC.
As one would reasonably expect, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Alyeska Investment Group, managed by Anand Parekh, initiated the biggest position in Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC). Alyeska Investment Group had $49.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management also made a $7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new GNRC investors: Josh Goldberg’s G2 Investment Partners Management, Ira Unschuld’s Brant Point Investment Management, and Ira Unschuld’s Brant Point Investment Management.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Teladoc Health, Inc (NYSE:TDOC), JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU), Cimarex Energy Co (NYSE:XEC), and Ultrapar Participacoes SA (NYSE:UGP). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble GNRC’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TDOC | 17 | 102048 | -1 |
| JBLU | 23 | 646872 | -4 |
| XEC | 31 | 926221 | 4 |
| UGP | 5 | 45121 | -2 |
| Average | 19 | 430066 | -0.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 19 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $430 million. That figure was $290 million in GNRC’s case. Cimarex Energy Co (NYSE:XEC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ultrapar Participacoes SA (NYSE:UGP) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above 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. Hedge funds were also right about betting on GNRC as the stock returned 25.7% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
