Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS)

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 821 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 March 31st, a week after the market trough. In this article we look at what those investors think of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS).

Is Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Investors who are in the know are buying. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 5 lately. Our calculations also showed that LVS 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). LVS was in 42 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. There were 37 hedge funds in our database with LVS holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

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 has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 44 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 underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.

Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we are still not out of the woods in terms of the coronavirus pandemic. So, we checked out this successful trader’s “corona catalyst plays“. 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 let’s view the recent hedge fund action surrounding Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS).

How have hedgies been trading Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 42 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 14% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in LVS over the last 18 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, D1 Capital Partners held the most valuable stake in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), which was worth $354 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Melvin Capital Management which amassed $316.1 million worth of shares. Point72 Asset Management, Viking Global, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Cumberland Associates / Springowl Associates allocated the biggest weight to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), around 5.85% of its 13F portfolio. Columbus Hill Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 5 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LVS.

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have jumped into Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) headfirst. Viking Global, managed by Andreas Halvorsen, created the largest position in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS). Viking Global had $131.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $8.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new LVS positions are Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Capital, Randall Smith’s Alden Global Capital, and Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) but similarly valued. These stocks are Prudential Public Limited Company (NYSE:PUK), Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO), Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD), and Orange S.A. (NYSE:ORAN). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to LVS’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $106 million. That figure was $1186 million in LVS’s case. Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Orange S.A. (NYSE:ORAN) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) is more popular among hedge funds. 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 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May and still beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. Unfortunately LVS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on LVS were disappointed as the stock returned 12.9% during the second quarter (through the end of May) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.

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