Here is What Hedge Funds Think about Colliers International Group Inc (CIGI)

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI).

During the third quarter, Colliers International Group saw a decline in confidence from smart money investors and 10 funds from our database held shares of the company at the end of September. However, 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 Plexus Corp. (NASDAQ:PLXS), Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO), and Aircastle Limited (NYSE:AYR) to gather more data points.

We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs. We launched this strategy 2.5 years ago and it returned more than 39% since then, vs. 22% gain registered by the S&P 500 ETFs.

Alexander Raths/Shutterstock.com

Now, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action regarding Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI).

What does the smart money think about Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, which is lower than 12 funds at the end of June. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CIGI over the last five quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, BloombergSen, led by Jonathan Bloomberg, holds the biggest position in Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI). BloombergSen has a $72.6 million position in the stock, comprising 7.1% of its 13F portfolio. On BloombergSen’s heels is Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, which holds a $29.9 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions include Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management. 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.

Since Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of funds that slashed their positions entirely last quarter. Interestingly, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management dropped the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds studied by Insider Monkey, totaling about $0.3 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also cut its stock, about $0.2 million worth.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI). These stocks are Plexus Corp. (NASDAQ:PLXS), Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO), Aircastle Limited (NYSE:AYR), and FCB Financial Holdings Inc (NYSE:FCB). This group of stocks’ market values match CIGI’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16 investors with long positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $127 million, compared to $109 million in CIGI’s case. FCB Financial Holdings Inc (NYSE:FCB) is the most popular stock in this table, while Aircastle Limited (NYSE:AYR) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI) is even less popular than Aircastle Limited (NYSE:AYR). Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: none