How China Life Insurance Company Ltd. (LFC) Stacks Up Against Similarly Valued Stocks

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. PEAK6 Capital Management, led by Matthew Hulsizer, created the most valuable call position in China Life Insurance Company Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:LFC). According to regulatory filings, the fund had $1.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital, Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital, and Louis Navellier’s Navellier & Associates.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as China Life Insurance Company Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:LFC) but similarly valued. We will take a look at U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB), Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR), Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN), and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to LFC’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 71 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $8.01 billion. That figure was a meager $48 million in LFC’s case. Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) is the least popular one with only 34 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks China Life Insurance Company Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:LFC) is even less popular than LMT. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: none.