Hedge Funds Head for Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL)’s Exits: What Spooked Them?

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We at Insider Monkey have gone over 742 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the government. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) based on that data.

Is Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) a buy right now? Money managers are in a pessimistic mood. The number of long hedge fund bets that are revealed through the 13F filings contracted by 10 recently. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc (NASDAQ:GLPI), TAL Education Group (ADR) (NYSE:XRS), and Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI) to gather more data points.

Follow Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. (NASDAQ:ODFL)

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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What have hedge funds been doing with Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a slide of 42% from the second quarter of 2016. By comparison, 23 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ODFL heading into this year, so the year-to-date decline is close to the same as Q3’s decline. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

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According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Richard Chilton’s Chilton Investment Company has the number one position in Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL), worth close to $25.3 million, comprising 1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is D E Shaw, founded by David E. Shaw, which holds a $17.8 million position. Some other professional money managers that are bullish consist of Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, Ira Unschuld’s Brant Point Investment Management, and Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

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