Is Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT) a good stock to buy right now? We at Insider Monkey like to examine what billionaires and hedge funds think of a company before doing days of research on it. Given their 2 and 20 payment structure, hedge funds have more incentives and resources than the average investor. The funds have access to expert networks and get tips from industry insiders. They also have numerous Ivy League graduates and MBAs. Like everyone else, hedge funds perform miserably at times, but their consensus picks have historically outperformed the market after risk adjustments.
Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT) was in 19 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2019. PLT has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with PLT positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that plt isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are plenty of methods stock traders put to use to analyze stocks. Two of the less known methods are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best hedge fund managers can beat the broader indices by a healthy margin (see the details here).
We’re going to analyze the recent hedge fund action surrounding Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT).
How have hedgies been trading Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 19% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards PLT over the last 15 quarters. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Lakewood Capital Management, managed by Anthony Bozza, holds the number one position in Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT). Lakewood Capital Management has a $19.9 million position in the stock, comprising 0.6% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider of SG Capital Management, with a $15.7 million position; 2.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining members of the smart money with similar optimism include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
As one would reasonably expect, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Lakewood Capital Management, managed by Anthony Bozza, assembled the most valuable position in Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT). Lakewood Capital Management had $19.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider’s SG Capital Management also initiated a $15.7 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, Thomas E. Claugus’s GMT Capital, and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT) but similarly valued. These stocks are LTC Properties Inc (NYSE:LTC), LegacyTexas Financial Group Inc (NASDAQ:LTXB), Columbia Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLBK), and Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE:MNK). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to PLT’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LTC | 9 | 32304 | -3 |
| LTXB | 12 | 89912 | 0 |
| CLBK | 8 | 25859 | 2 |
| MNK | 20 | 280322 | -2 |
| Average | 12.25 | 107099 | -0.75 |
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 $107 million. That figure was $92 million in PLT’s case. Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE:MNK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Columbia Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLBK) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT) 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 1.9% in Q2 through May 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 3 percentage points. Unfortunately PLT wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PLT were disappointed as the stock returned -4.9% during the same period 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 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q2.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
