Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Ryder System, Inc. (R)

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third 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 Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R).

Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R) investors should pay attention to a slight decrease in hedge fund interest of late. There were 23 hedge funds in our database with long positions in Ryder System at the end of September. 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 EPAM Systems Inc (NYSE:EPAM), Syntel, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNT), and Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA (ADR) (NYSE:BVN) to gather more data points.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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With all of this in mind, let’s take a peek at the new action encompassing Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R).

Hedge fund activity in Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R)

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 23 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, down by one fund from the end of June. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards Ryder System over the last five quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal’s Luminus Management has the biggest position in Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R), worth close to $121.9 million, accounting for 3.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Luminus Management’s heels is Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, with a $33.5 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other peers that are bullish contain John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. We should note that Luminus Management is 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.

We already know that not all hedge funds are bullish on the stock and some hedge funds actually said goodbye to their positions entirely. Intriguingly, Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management said goodbye to the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth about $33.6 million in stock. Robert Vollero and Gentry T. Beach’s fund, Vollero Beach Capital Partners, also dropped its stock, about $5.1 million worth.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R) but similarly valued. These stocks are EPAM Systems Inc (NYSE:EPAM), Syntel, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNT), Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA (ADR) (NYSE:BVN), and Shopify Inc (NYSE:SHOP). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to Ryder System’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $191 million, compared to $269 million in Ryder System’s case. Shopify Inc (NYSE:SHOP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA (ADR) (NYSE:BVN) is the least popular one with only eight funds having reported long positions. Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard Shopify Inc (NYSE:SHOP) might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none