A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment towards Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN).
So, is Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN) the right investment to pursue these days? Prominent investors might be taking a bullish view, as the number of bullish hedge fund bets inched up by one during the third quarter and the company was included in the equity portfolios of 29 funds from our database at the end of September. To get a better sense of its popularity, we will also compare WCN to other stocks including BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:BMRN), Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC), and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc (NYSE:HOT) at the end of this article.
Follow Waste Connections Us Inc. (NYSE:WCN)
Follow Waste Connections Us Inc. (NYSE:WCN)
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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With all of this in mind, let’s view the new action surrounding Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN).
How have hedgies been trading Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN)?
As stated earlier, 29 investors tracked by Insider Monkey held shares of Waste Connections at the end of September, up by 4% over the quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Maverick Capital, led by Lee Ainslie, holds the number one position in Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN). Maverick Capital has a $439.9 million position in the stock, comprising 5.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin of Senator Investment Group, with a $83.4 million position; 1.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish include Malcolm Fairbairn’s Ascend Capital, Millennium Management, one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world, and Robert Pohly’s Samlyn Capital. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
Now, specific money managers have jumped into Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN) headfirst. Ira Unschuld’s Brant Point Investment Management made a $2.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Robert Raiff’s Raiff Partners.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN) but similarly valued. These stocks are ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW), Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL), Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), and CGI Group Inc. (USA) (NYSE:GIB). This group of stocks’ market values resemble WCN’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| NOW | 31 | 981619 | 0 |
| MKL | 15 | 899585 | -5 |
| LBRDK | 42 | 3745967 | -1 |
| GIB | 16 | 121641 | 1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 26 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.44 billion. That figure was $987 million in WCN’s case. Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN) 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. In this regard LBRDK might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
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Disclosure: None
