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 Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO).
Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO) was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. AGRO investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund interest lately. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with AGRO holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that agro isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Today there are dozens of gauges stock traders put to use to size up stocks. Some of the less known gauges are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best investment managers can beat the S&P 500 by a superb amount (see the details here).
We’re going to check out the latest hedge fund action encompassing Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO).
How have hedgies been trading Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO)?
Heading into the first quarter of 2019, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 6% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 19 hedge funds with a bullish position in AGRO a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Edmond M. Safra’s EMS Capital has the biggest position in Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO), worth close to $70.1 million, comprising 6.6% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Route One Investment Company, led by William Duhamel, holding a $68.2 million position; 2.5% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish comprise Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, Zach Schreiber’s Point State Capital and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Almitas Capital, managed by Ron Mass, created the most valuable position in Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO). Almitas Capital had $4.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also made a $2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock is Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Solar Capital Ltd. (NASDAQ:SLRC), Globalstar, Inc. (NYSE:GSAT), MBIA Inc. (NYSE:MBI), and Republic Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:RBCAA). This group of stocks’ market values resemble AGRO’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLRC | 12 | 46473 | 1 |
| GSAT | 12 | 141376 | -10 |
| MBI | 18 | 277243 | -1 |
| RBCAA | 7 | 14532 | 0 |
| Average | 12.25 | 119906 | -2.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $120 million. That figure was $186 million in AGRO’s case. MBIA Inc. (NYSE:MBI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Republic Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:RBCAA) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO) 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 AGRO wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock and hedge funds that were betting on AGRO were disappointed as the stock returned -2.7% 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.
