Here is What Hedge Funds Think About SITE Centers Corp. (SITC)

In this article we will take a look at whether hedge funds think SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC) is a good investment right now. We check hedge fund and billionaire investor sentiment before delving into hours of research. Hedge funds spend millions of dollars on Ivy League graduates, unconventional data sources, expert networks, and get tips from investment bankers and industry insiders. Sure they sometimes fail miserably, but their consensus stock picks historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk factors.

Is SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC) the right pick for your portfolio? Hedge funds are becoming less hopeful. The number of long hedge fund bets were cut by 1 recently. Our calculations also showed that SITC 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). SITC was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 22 hedge funds in our database with SITC positions at the end of the previous quarter.

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

At the moment there are many signals investors employ to appraise stocks. A couple of the most underrated signals are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can outperform the broader indices by a healthy amount (see the details here).

Dmitry Balyasny of Balyasny Asset Management

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out trades like this one. 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 we’re going to take a peek at the recent hedge fund action surrounding SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC).

What have hedge funds been doing with SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC)?

Heading into the second quarter of 2020, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -5% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 14 hedge funds with a bullish position in SITC a year ago. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Citadel Investment Group held the most valuable stake in SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC), which was worth $24.6 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Balyasny Asset Management which amassed $5.1 million worth of shares. Capital Growth Management, D E Shaw, and Renaissance Technologies 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 Capital Growth Management allocated the biggest weight to SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC), around 0.64% of its 13F portfolio. Balyasny Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.06 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SITC.

Seeing as SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC) has witnessed a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of hedge funds who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Stuart J. Zimmer’s Zimmer Partners dumped the biggest stake of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $15.8 million in stock, and Matthew Crandall Gilman’s Hill Winds Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $5.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total 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 SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. (NASDAQ:GGAL), Calavo Growers, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVGW), NextCure, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTC), and Red Rock Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:RRR). All of these stocks’ market caps match SITC’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $117 million. That figure was $47 million in SITC’s case. Red Rock Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:RRR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. (NASDAQ:GGAL) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE:SITC) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. 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 12.2% in 2020 through June 17th but still beat the market by 14.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on SITC as the stock returned 50.1% in Q2 (through June 17th) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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