Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Godaddy Inc (GDDY)

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 823 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 30th, when the S&P 500 Index was trading around the 3100 level. Stocks kept going up since then. In this article we look at how hedge funds traded Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) and determine whether the smart money was really smart about this stock.

Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) was in 55 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistics is 54. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. GDDY investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. There were 54 hedge funds in our database with GDDY holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that GDDY isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 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 dozens of indicators stock traders use to analyze publicly traded companies. A pair of the most under-the-radar indicators are hedge fund and insider trading interest. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite money managers can beat the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see the details here).

Donald Sussman of Paloma Partners

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost precious metals prices. So, we are checking out this junior gold mining stock.. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in America to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. Now we’re going to take a gander at the recent hedge fund action encompassing Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY).

How have hedgies been trading Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY)?

At Q2’s end, a total of 55 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 2% from the first quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in GDDY over the last 20 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) was held by Select Equity Group, which reported holding $675.4 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by BlueSpruce Investments with a $323.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Renaissance Technologies, D E Shaw, and Newbrook Capital Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Brahman Capital allocated the biggest weight to Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY), around 11.5% of its 13F portfolio. Highside Global Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 9.7 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GDDY.

Now, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Paloma Partners, managed by Donald Sussman, initiated the largest position in Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY). Paloma Partners had $7.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Anthony S. Daffer’s Provenire Capital also made a $6.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Joseph Samuels’s Islet Management, Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management, and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY). We will take a look at Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSE:LNG), Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE:ATO), Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO), GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS), Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP), The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM), and W.P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to GDDY’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 30.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $937 million. That figure was $2539 million in GDDY’s case. GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GDDY is 86. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. 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 28.2% in 2020 through August 24th but still managed to beat the market by 20.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on GDDY, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 12.2% since the end of June and outperformed the market as well.

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