The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the second quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR).
Is Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR) a great investment today? Money managers are becoming more confident. The number of bullish hedge fund bets advanced by 5 lately. Our calculations also showed that EXR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In today’s marketplace there are a multitude of tools investors employ to value publicly traded companies. Two of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best hedge fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see the details here).
Let’s take a peek at the latest hedge fund action regarding Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR).
What does the smart money think about Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 29% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards EXR over the last 13 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, holds the most valuable position in Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR). Arrowstreet Capital has a $77.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $49.5 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that are bullish contain Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, assembled the biggest position in Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR). Balyasny Asset Management had $23.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management also made a $7.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Malcolm Fairbairn’s Ascend Capital, Jeffrey Talpins’s Element Capital Management, and David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR). These stocks are Regency Centers Corp (NASDAQ:REG), 58.com Inc (NYSE:WUBA), Jacobs Engineering Group Inc (NYSE:JEC), and Trimble Inc. (NASDAQ:TRMB). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble EXR’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| REG | 18 | 252505 | -4 |
| WUBA | 24 | 689789 | 2 |
| JEC | 30 | 730196 | 1 |
| TRMB | 17 | 606646 | -2 |
| Average | 22.25 | 569784 | -0.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $570 million. That figure was $293 million in EXR’s case. Jacobs Engineering Group Inc (NYSE:JEC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Trimble Inc. (NASDAQ:TRMB) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard JEC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
