Before we spend countless hours researching a company, we’d like to analyze what insiders, hedge funds and billionaire investors think of the stock first. We would like to do so because our research has shown that the elite investors’ consensus returns have been exceptional. In the following paragraphs, we find out what the billionaire investors and hedge funds think of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).
National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. 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 Medifast, Inc. (NYSE:MED), Liberty Oilfield Services Inc. (NYSE:LBRT), and CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP) to gather more data points.
To most stock holders, hedge funds are assumed to be underperforming, old financial tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds trading at present, We choose to focus on the elite of this group, about 750 funds. These investment experts administer the majority of the smart money’s total capital, and by observing their finest investments, Insider Monkey has spotted many investment strategies that have historically outstripped the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by nearly 5 percentage points per annum since its inception in May 2014 through early November 2018. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.5% since February 2017 (through March 12th) even though the market was up nearly 25% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update and they are already down an average of 6% in less than a month.
We’re going to check out the key hedge fund action regarding National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).
What have hedge funds been doing with National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA)?
At Q4’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 9 hedge funds with a bullish position in NSA a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA), with a stake worth $37 million reported as of the end of December. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Winton Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $18.5 million. Marshall Wace LLP, Millennium Management, and Arrowstreet Capital were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
Because National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) has witnessed declining sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there was a specific group of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management dropped the biggest investment of the 700 funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $0.8 million in stock, and Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Medifast, Inc. (NYSE:MED), Liberty Oilfield Services Inc. (NYSE:LBRT), CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP), and WestAmerica Bancorp. (NASDAQ:WABC). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to NSA’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| MED | 22 | 270358 | 0 |
| LBRT | 12 | 75972 | 4 |
| CRSP | 11 | 89245 | -5 |
| WABC | 5 | 4479 | 1 |
| Average | 12.5 | 110014 | 0 |
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 $110 million. That figure was $108 million in NSA’s case. Medifast, Inc. (NYSE:MED) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand WestAmerica Bancorp. (NASDAQ:WABC) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) 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. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. Unfortunately NSA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock and hedge funds that were betting on NSA were disappointed as the stock returned 5.1% and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
