Hedge Funds Never Loved Janus Henderson Group plc (JHG) More

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. Insider Monkey finished processing 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. What do these smart investors think about Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG)?

Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG) was in 23 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. JHG shareholders have witnessed an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with JHG holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that JHG 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.

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 58 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 36% through May 18th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

John Rogers of Ariel Investments

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. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a glance at the recent hedge fund action encompassing Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG).

Hedge fund activity in Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG)

At Q1’s end, a total of 23 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 28% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 12 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in JHG a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Ariel Investments was the largest shareholder of Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG), with a stake worth $31.2 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Ariel Investments was Arrowstreet Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $27.4 million. Fisher Asset Management, Citadel Investment Group, and GAMCO Investors 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 Ariel Investments allocated the biggest weight to Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG), around 0.55% of its 13F portfolio. Neo Ivy Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.35 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to JHG.

As aggregate interest increased, some big names have been driving this bullishness. D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, established the largest position in Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG). D E Shaw had $4.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also made a $1.8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new JHG positions are Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, Peter Muller’s PDT Partners, and Peter Seuss’s Prana Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG) but similarly valued. These stocks are nVent Electric plc (NYSE:NVT), Q2 Holdings Inc (NYSE:QTWO), UniFirst Corp (NYSE:UNF), and Watts Water Technologies Inc (NYSE:WTS). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to JHG’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $246 million. That figure was $124 million in JHG’s case. nVent Electric plc (NYSE:NVT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand UniFirst Corp (NYSE:UNF) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Janus Henderson Group plc (NYSE:JHG) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. 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 but still beat the market by 14.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on JHG as the stock returned 68.4% in Q2 (through June 10th) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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