With the first-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the first quarter. One of these stocks was Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR).
Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR) investors should be aware of an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. Our calculations also showed that vtr isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 25.8% year to date (through May 30th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
We’re going to check out the key hedge fund action surrounding Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR).
Hedge fund activity in Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR)
Heading into the second quarter of 2019, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 36% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in VTR over the last 15 quarters. So, let’s find 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 Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR), with a stake worth $208.1 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Balyasny Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $30.8 million. Adage Capital Management, AQR Capital Management, and Citadel Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
Now, specific money managers have jumped into Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR) headfirst. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, assembled the largest position in Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR). Balyasny Asset Management had $30.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners also made a $0.8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new VTR positions are Mike Vranos’s Ellington, Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR). These stocks are Align Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALGN), Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC), Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:WLTW), and Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF). All of these stocks’ market caps match VTR’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALGN | 30 | 1756917 | -7 |
| APC | 50 | 2096400 | -4 |
| WLTW | 33 | 1631672 | 8 |
| SYF | 45 | 2701973 | 5 |
| Average | 39.5 | 2046741 | 0.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 39.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2047 million. That figure was $300 million in VTR’s case. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Align Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALGN) is the least popular one with only 30 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR) is even less popular than ALGN. 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. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on VTR, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 0.5% during the same time frame and outperformed the market as well.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
