Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Kimco Realty Corp (KIM)

The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on March 31st, about a week after the S&P 500 Index bottomed. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 821 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM) based on those filings.

Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM) has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. Our calculations also showed that KIM 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.

To the average investor there are plenty of indicators stock traders use to appraise stocks. Two of the most innovative indicators are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a significant amount (see the details here).

David Harding of Winton Capital Management

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out trades like this one. 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 go over the recent hedge fund action surrounding Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM).

How are hedge funds trading Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 38% from the fourth quarter of 2019. By comparison, 11 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in KIM a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, holds the number one position in Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM). Renaissance Technologies has a $26.3 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’s heels is Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which holds a $5.6 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish contain Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Neo Ivy Capital allocated the biggest weight to Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM), around 0.37% of its 13F portfolio. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.14 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to KIM.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have jumped into Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM) headfirst. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, created the most valuable position in Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM). Citadel Investment Group had $5.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also made a $5.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new KIM investors: Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM). These stocks are Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE:ARW), Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ), ICU Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ICUI), and United Therapeutics Corporation (NASDAQ:UTHR). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble KIM’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 26.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $535 million. That figure was $55 million in KIM’s case. United Therapeutics Corporation (NASDAQ:UTHR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE:ARW) is the least popular one with only 23 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM) is even less popular than ARW. Hedge funds clearly dropped the ball on KIM as the stock delivered strong returns, though hedge funds’ consensus picks still generated respectable returns. 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 13.9% in 2020 through June 10th and still beat the market by 14.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on KIM as the stock returned 49.7% so far in the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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