Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (HBAN) Fell Out Of Favor With Hedge Funds

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 March 31st, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN).

Is Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) the right pick for your portfolio? Prominent investors were cutting their exposure. The number of long hedge fund positions retreated by 2 recently. Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) was in 27 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 40. Our calculations also showed that HBAN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). There were 29 hedge funds in our database with HBAN holdings at the end of December.

In the eyes of most investors, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open at present, We look at the crème de la crème of this group, around 850 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people control most of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their highest performing investments, Insider Monkey has determined a few investment strategies that have historically outrun Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in March 2017. Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .

Ryan Tolkin, CIO of Schonfeld Strategic Advisors

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, economists warn of inflation flare up. So, we are checking out this backdoor gold play that has hit peak gains of 718% in a little over a year. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Keeping this in mind we’re going to go over the new hedge fund action encompassing Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN).

Do Hedge Funds Think HBAN Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At first quarter’s end, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -7% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in HBAN over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, holds the biggest position in Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN). Millennium Management has a $61.2 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Adage Capital Management, led by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, holding a $17 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining members of the smart money that hold long positions include Renaissance Technologies, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Prana Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN), around 0.58% of its 13F portfolio. Sciencast Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.37 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HBAN.

Because Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) has experienced falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there were a few hedge funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes heading into Q2. At the top of the heap, Brandon Haley’s Holocene Advisors said goodbye to the biggest investment of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $2.5 million in stock, and Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider’s SG Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $1.2 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds heading into Q2.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) but similarly valued. These stocks are Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CLVT), HEICO Corporation (NYSE:HEI), Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC), IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX), Pembina Pipeline Corp (NYSE:PBA), Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP), and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP). All of these stocks’ market caps match HBAN’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 25.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1122 million. That figure was $154 million in HBAN’s case. HEICO Corporation (NYSE:HEI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for HBAN is 46. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 24% in 2021 through July 9th and beat the market again by 6.7 percentage points. Unfortunately HBAN wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on HBAN were disappointed as the stock returned -8.3% since the end of March (through 7/9) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.