The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the second quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30th. 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 Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW).
Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest lately. Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW) was in 75 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic was previously 70. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its new all time high. There were 70 hedge funds in our database with WLTW holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that WLTW isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. With all of this in mind let’s go over the fresh hedge fund action regarding Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW).
William Von Mueffling of Cantillon Capital Management
Do Hedge Funds Think WLTW Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of September, a total of 75 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 7% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 51 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in WLTW a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW) was held by Eagle Capital Management, which reported holding $484.3 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Cantillon Capital Management with a $387.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Farallon Capital, Millennium Management, and Viking Global. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Twin Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW), around 11.96% of its 13F portfolio. Steel Canyon Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 11.63 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to WLTW.
As one would reasonably expect, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Viking Global, managed by Andreas Halvorsen, created the most valuable position in Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW). Viking Global had $269.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Larry Robbins’s Glenview Capital also made a $193.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new WLTW investors: Ricky Sandler’s Eminence Capital, John Smith Clark’s Southpoint Capital Advisors, and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW). We will take a look at Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN), TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU), Paycom Software Inc (NYSE:PAYC), ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS), Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST), ArcelorMittal (NYSE:MT), and Ecopetrol S.A. (NYSE:EC). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to WLTW’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| GRMN | 30 | 465208 | 5 |
| TU | 12 | 141291 | -1 |
| PAYC | 40 | 1424558 | 1 |
| ANSS | 38 | 1493156 | -8 |
| FAST | 30 | 609114 | 5 |
| MT | 20 | 1012692 | -2 |
| EC | 6 | 64885 | 0 |
| Average | 25.1 | 744415 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 25.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $744 million. That figure was $5055 million in WLTW’s case. Paycom Software Inc (NYSE:PAYC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ecopetrol S.A. (NYSE:EC) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for WLTW is 90. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately WLTW wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on WLTW were disappointed as the stock returned -2.8% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Willis Towers Watson Plc (NYSE:WTW)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
