Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of December. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 750 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.
Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL) was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. CSL investors should pay attention to a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. There were 22 hedge funds in our database with CSL positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CSL isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the eyes of most market participants, hedge funds are perceived as underperforming, old investment vehicles of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at the moment, We choose to focus on the upper echelon of this group, approximately 750 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people watch over the majority of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by following their best investments, Insider Monkey has unearthed a few investment strategies that have historically exceeded the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by nearly 5 percentage points per annum since its inception in May 2014 through early November 2018. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.5% since February 2017 (through March 12th) even though the market was up nearly 25% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update and they are already down an average of 6% in less than a month.
We’re going to analyze the new hedge fund action surrounding Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL).
What does the smart money think about Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -5% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CSL over the last 14 quarters. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL) was held by Select Equity Group, which reported holding $127.7 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Pzena Investment Management with a $62.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Balyasny Asset Management, Precision Path Capital, and Point72 Asset Management.
Because Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. Interestingly, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital dumped the biggest stake of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $15.8 million in stock, and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $13.9 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Pool Corporation (NASDAQ:POOL), Vectren Corporation (NYSE:VVC), PRA Health Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:PRAH), and USG Corporation (NYSE:USG). This group of stocks’ market caps match CSL’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| POOL | 17 | 242228 | 0 |
| VVC | 23 | 731051 | 4 |
| PRAH | 25 | 297610 | -3 |
| USG | 20 | 2262197 | -1 |
| Average | 21.25 | 883272 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 21.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $883 million. That figure was $341 million in CSL’s case. PRA Health Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:PRAH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Pool Corporation (NASDAQ:POOL) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 21.3% through April 8th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 5 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on CSL as the stock returned 25.3% and outperformed the market as well. You can see the entire list of these shrewd hedge funds here.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
