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 Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY) and determine whether the smart money was really smart about this stock.
Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY) was in 19 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 10. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 10 hedge funds in our database with PGNY holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that PGNY 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.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 56 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 34% through August 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, 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 real estate prices. So, we are checking out this junior gold mining stock and we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world 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. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website to get excerpts of these letters in your inbox. With all of this in mind let’s go over the recent hedge fund action regarding Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY).
What does smart money think about Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 90% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in PGNY over the last 20 quarters. 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, Citadel Investment Group was the largest shareholder of Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY), with a stake worth $11.7 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Citadel Investment Group was Millennium Management, which amassed a stake valued at $10.7 million. OrbiMed Advisors, Holocene Advisors, and Marshall Wace LLP were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Crestwood Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY), around 2.47% of its 13F portfolio. Osterweis Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.31 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PGNY.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have been driving this bullishness. OrbiMed Advisors, managed by Samuel Isaly, created the biggest position in Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY). OrbiMed Advisors had $8.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Brandon Haley’s Holocene Advisors also made a $8.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new PGNY positions are Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, Michael Rockefeller and KarláKroeker’s Woodline Partners, and Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Primo Water Corporation (NYSE:PRMW), Shake Shack Inc (NYSE:SHAK), New Fortress Energy LLC (NASDAQ:NFE), Kennedy-Wilson Holdings Inc (NYSE:KW), Stepan Company (NYSE:SCL), Afya Limited (NASDAQ:AFYA), and Kornit Digital Ltd. (NASDAQ:KRNT). All of these stocks’ market caps match PGNY’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| PRMW | 31 | 624565 | -5 |
| SHAK | 22 | 458714 | 0 |
| NFE | 5 | 24818 | 3 |
| KW | 14 | 350773 | -8 |
| SCL | 15 | 51618 | 5 |
| AFYA | 6 | 48743 | -2 |
| KRNT | 9 | 56653 | 0 |
| Average | 14.6 | 230841 | -1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $231 million. That figure was $64 million in PGNY’s case. Primo Water Corporation (NYSE:PRMW) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand New Fortress Energy LLC (NASDAQ:NFE) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Progyny, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNY) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PGNY is 66.9. 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 24.8% in 2020 through the end of third quarter and still beat the market by 19.3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on PGNY as the stock returned 14% during Q3 and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
