We at Insider Monkey have gone over 730 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 28th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) based on that data.
Is Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) a sound stock to buy now? The best stock pickers are in a pessimistic mood. The number of long hedge fund bets were trimmed by 8 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that TIF isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (view the video below).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the eyes of most traders, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, old investment tools of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation at the moment, Our experts look at the bigwigs of this group, approximately 750 funds. These investment experts administer the lion’s share of the smart money’s total asset base, and by paying attention to their matchless stock picks, Insider Monkey has deciphered various investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points a year since its inception in May 2014. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 25.7% since February 2017 (through September 30th) even though the market was up more than 33% during the same period. We just shared a list of 10 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Unlike some fund managers who are betting on Dow reaching 40000 in a year, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. Let’s take a glance at the new hedge fund action encompassing Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF).
How are hedge funds trading Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF)?
Heading into the third quarter of 2019, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -27% from the first quarter of 2019. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards TIF over the last 16 quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) was held by Lone Pine Capital, which reported holding $615.2 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Egerton Capital Limited with a $445 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Thunderbird Partners, Manikay Partners, and Dorsal Capital Management.
Due to the fact that Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) has faced falling interest from the smart money, we can see that there exists a select few money managers who were dropping their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Barry Rosenstein’s JANA Partners cut the largest investment of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, comprising about $99.4 million in call options. Brandon Haley’s fund, Holocene Advisors, also dumped its call options, about $68.6 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 8 funds last quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) but similarly valued. These stocks are Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT), Lennox International Inc. (NYSE:LII), E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:ETFC), and Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGEN). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to TIF’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SRPT | 48 | 1466822 | 4 |
| LII | 21 | 120353 | 2 |
| ETFC | 43 | 1180517 | 0 |
| SGEN | 17 | 3788958 | -2 |
| Average | 32.25 | 1639163 | 1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 32.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1639 million. That figure was $1455 million in TIF’s case. Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGEN) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) 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. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Unfortunately TIF wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); TIF investors were disappointed as the stock returned -0.5% during the third quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in 2019.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
