The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER).
So, is Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER) a buy, sell, or hold? The smart money seems to be in a bearish mood, as the number of long hedge fund positions fell by two during the third quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare VER to other stocks, including Buckeye Partners, L.P. (NYSE:BPL), Mosaic Co (NYSE:MOS), and J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Vereit Inc. (NYSE:VER)
Follow Vereit Inc. (NYSE:VER)
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 take a peek at the new action surrounding Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER).
What have hedge funds been doing with Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER)?.
At the end of September, 27 investors tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in Vereit, down by 7% over the quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital has the biggest position in Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER), worth close to $149.2 million, comprising 1.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Jonathon Jacobson’s Highfields Capital Management, which owns a $98.6 million position; the fund has 0.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions contain Jonathan Kolatch’s Redwood Capital Management, Matthew Barrett’s Glendon Capital Management, and Jeffrey Altman’s Owl Creek Asset Management.
Since Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER) has experienced declining sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there exists a select few funds who sold off their full holdings between July and September. Intriguingly, Keith Meister’s Corvex Capital sold off the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at about $106.8 million in stock, and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $41.2 million worth of shares.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER). These stocks are Buckeye Partners, L.P. (NYSE:BPL), Mosaic Co (NYSE:MOS), J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT), and Sealed Air Corp (NYSE:SEE). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble VER’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BPL | 13 | 67387 | -1 |
| MOS | 24 | 343140 | 5 |
| JBHT | 31 | 353428 | 3 |
| SEE | 31 | 1518782 | -15 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 25 hedge funds with bullish positions at the end of September and the average amount invested in these stocks was $571 million. That figure was $664 million in VER’s case. J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) 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 13 funds having reported long positions. Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER) 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 J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
