The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 887 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of December 31st, 2020. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ).
Is AIZ stock a buy? Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) was in 27 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 39. AIZ investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. There were 23 hedge funds in our database with AIZ holdings at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that AIZ isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, auto parts business is a recession resistant business, so we are taking a closer look at this discount auto parts stock that is growing at a 196% annualized rate. We go through lists like the 15 best micro-cap stocks to buy now to identify the next stock with 10x upside potential. 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 website. Keeping this in mind we’re going to go over the key hedge fund action surrounding Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ).
Do Hedge Funds Think AIZ Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At fourth quarter’s end, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 17% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 25 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in AIZ a year ago. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) was held by Viking Global, which reported holding $375.8 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Lyrical Asset Management with a $156.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Samlyn Capital, AQR Capital Management, and Adage Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position One Fin Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ), around 7.13% of its 13F portfolio. Lyrical Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 2.16 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AIZ.
Now, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, initiated the largest position in Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ). Marshall Wace LLP had $4.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mika Toikka’s AlphaCrest Capital Management also made a $0.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new AIZ positions are Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Karim Abbadi and Edward McBride’s Centiva Capital, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE:LEVI), Fate Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:FATE), Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (NYSE:MBT), Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS), Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ARWR), II-VI, Inc. (NASDAQ:IIVI), and Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble AIZ’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEVI | 21 | 178033 | 4 |
| FATE | 34 | 2518483 | 0 |
| MBT | 13 | 318688 | 3 |
| IONS | 28 | 524224 | 3 |
| ARWR | 24 | 252341 | 2 |
| IIVI | 26 | 115253 | 2 |
| RGA | 19 | 217640 | -12 |
| Average | 23.6 | 589237 | 0.3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $589 million. That figure was $910 million in AIZ’s case. Fate Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:FATE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (NYSE:MBT) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AIZ is 63.1. 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. Our calculations showed that top 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on AIZ as the stock returned 13.1% since the end of Q4 (through 4/19) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Follow Assurant Inc. (NYSE:AIZ)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
