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 Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO).
Is Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO) the right pick for your portfolio? Prominent investors are taking a bearish view. The number of bullish hedge fund positions dropped by 2 lately. At the end of this article we will also compare AGRO to other stocks including Stepan Company (NYSE:SCL), Headwaters Inc (NYSE:HW), and CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD) to get a better sense of its popularity.
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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What does the smart money think about Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a 8% slide from one quarter earlier. After surging by nearly 100% in Q1, smart money ownership has since dropped in each of the last 2 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, George Soros’ Soros Fund Management has the number one position in Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO), worth close to $136 million, corresponding to 3.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Dwight Anderson of Ospraie Management, with a $104.4 million position; 100% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions consist of Edmond M. Safra’s EMS Capital, Zach Schreiber’s Point State Capital, and D E Shaw, founded by David E. Shaw.
Since Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO) has witnessed declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there was a specific group of hedge funds who were dropping their entire stakes heading into Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group cut the biggest investment of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $3.9 million in stock, and Randall Smith’s Alden Global Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $0.8 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO). We will take a look at Stepan Company (NYSE:SCL), Headwaters Inc (NYSE:HW), CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD), and Wesco Aircraft Holdings Inc (NYSE:WAIR). This group of stocks’ market valuations match AGRO’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCL | 11 | 50414 | 0 |
| HW | 23 | 85313 | 0 |
| CNMD | 15 | 206084 | -1 |
| WAIR | 12 | 277830 | -1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 15 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $155 million. That figure was $391 million in AGRO’s case. Headwaters Inc (NYSE:HW) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Stepan Company (NYSE:SCL) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO) 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 with better recent sentiment. In this regard HW might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.
Disclosure: None
