The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We have processed the filings of the more than 700 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their December 31 holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.
Is United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Investors who are in the know are taking a bullish view. The number of bullish hedge fund bets increased by 2 lately. Our calculations also showed that USM isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are seen as slow, outdated financial tools of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds with their doors open at present, Our experts choose to focus on the upper echelon of this club, approximately 750 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people orchestrate the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by following their inimitable stock picks, Insider Monkey has come up with several investment strategies that have historically outrun Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outrun the S&P 500 index by nearly 5 percentage points per year 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 take a peek at the new hedge fund action encompassing United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM).
What have hedge funds been doing with United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM)?
At Q4’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 13% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in USM over the last 14 quarters. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, GAMCO Investors, managed by Mario Gabelli, holds the largest position in United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM). GAMCO Investors has a $111.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.9% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, which holds a $49.8 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other professional money managers with similar optimism consist of D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.
Consequently, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. HBK Investments, managed by David Costen Haley, established the largest position in United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM). HBK Investments had $0.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Minhua Zhang’s Weld Capital Management also initiated a $0.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new USM positions are Hoon Kim’s Quantinno Capital and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Buckeye Partners, L.P. (NYSE:BPL), LivaNova PLC (NASDAQ:LIVN), First Citizens BancShares Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA), and First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to USM’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BPL | 5 | 6109 | 0 |
| LIVN | 22 | 375931 | -8 |
| FCNCA | 22 | 205273 | 3 |
| FSLR | 22 | 352890 | 8 |
| Average | 17.75 | 235051 | 0.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $235 million. That figure was $209 million in USM’s case. LivaNova PLC (NASDAQ:LIVN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Buckeye Partners, L.P. (NYSE:BPL) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE:USM) 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 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 USM wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); USM investors were disappointed as the stock returned -4.2% 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.
