Investing in small cap stocks has historically been a way to outperform the market, as small cap companies typically grow faster on average than the blue chips. That outperformance comes with a price, however, as there are occasional periods of higher volatility. The last 8 months is one of those periods, as the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) has underperformed the larger S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 9 percentage points. Given that the funds we track tend to have a disproportionate amount of their portfolios in smaller cap stocks, they have seen some volatility in their portfolios too. Actually their moves are potentially one of the factors that contributed to this volatility. In this article, we use our extensive database of hedge fund holdings to find out what the smart money thinks of IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV).
IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) was in 64 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2019. IQV investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment lately. There were 49 hedge funds in our database with IQV positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that IQV isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In today’s marketplace there are plenty of formulas stock market investors can use to evaluate their stock investments. Two of the most useful formulas are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can beat the S&P 500 by a significant margin (see the details here).
Let’s take a glance at the latest hedge fund action surrounding IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV).
What have hedge funds been doing with IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 64 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 31% from the fourth quarter of 2018. By comparison, 43 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in IQV 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.
More specifically, Lone Pine Capital was the largest shareholder of IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV), with a stake worth $1108.8 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Lone Pine Capital was Glenview Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $562.5 million. AQR Capital Management, Farallon Capital, and Eminence Capital were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. D1 Capital Partners, managed by Daniel Sundheim, established the largest position in IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV). D1 Capital Partners had $110.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey’s Healthcor Management LP also made a $57.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital, Christopher James’s Partner Fund Management, and Robert Pohly’s Samlyn Capital.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH), Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV), TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:AMTD), and Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble IQV’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| APH | 25 | 518087 | 4 |
| FTV | 26 | 472153 | -4 |
| AMTD | 30 | 434471 | 13 |
| EQR | 22 | 250768 | -1 |
| Average | 25.75 | 418870 | 3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 25.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $419 million. That figure was $5289 million in IQV’s case. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:AMTD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR) is the least popular one with only 22 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 1.9% in Q2 through May 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 3 percentage points. Unfortunately IQV wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on IQV were disappointed as the stock returned -5.4% during the same period and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q2.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
