We at Insider Monkey have gone over 738 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 March 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI) based on that data.
Is Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI) a good investment now? Hedge funds are getting more bullish. The number of long hedge fund positions inched up by 2 recently. Our calculations also showed that RCI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 30.9% through May 30, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Let’s take a look at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI).
How have hedgies been trading Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 15% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards RCI over the last 15 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $190.1 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by GLG Partners with a $181.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included AQR Capital Management, Two Sigma Advisors, and GAMCO Investors.
Now, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Laurion Capital Management, managed by Benjamin A. Smith, assembled the biggest position in Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI). Laurion Capital Management had $18.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Minhua Zhang’s Weld Capital Management also initiated a $0.8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new RCI positions are Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt., Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Ronald Hua’s Qtron Investments.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI). We will take a look at Global Payments Inc (NYSE:GPN), Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU), and Imperial Oil Limited (NYSE:IMO). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to RCI’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPN | 29 | 557425 | 2 |
| IBKR | 23 | 940831 | 2 |
| LULU | 42 | 1770036 | 6 |
| IMO | 17 | 85055 | -2 |
| Average | 27.75 | 838337 | 2 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 27.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $838 million. That figure was $560 million in RCI’s case. Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Imperial Oil Limited (NYSE:IMO) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI) is even less popular than IMO. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards RCI. Our calculations showed that the top 20 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately RCI wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); RCI investors were disappointed as the stock returned -0.1% during the same time frame 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 the second quarter.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
