We at Insider Monkey have gone over 873 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR) based on that data.
Is ATR a good stock to buy? AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR) investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR) was in 27 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 28. There were 20 hedge funds in our database with ATR positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that ATR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are numerous gauges stock market investors use to size up stocks. A duo of the less utilized gauges are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top investment managers can outperform the market by a superb amount (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 (through August 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 79 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website.
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Do Hedge Funds Think ATR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At second quarter’s end, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 35% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ATR over the last 24 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.
More specifically, Rivulet Capital was the largest shareholder of AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR), with a stake worth $123.5 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Rivulet Capital was Polar Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $77.7 million. Hawk Ridge Management, Point72 Asset Management, and Royce & Associates were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Rivulet Capital allocated the biggest weight to AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR), around 7% of its 13F portfolio. Hawk Ridge Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 3.3 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ATR.
Now, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Hawk Ridge Management, managed by David Brown, assembled the most outsized position in AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR). Hawk Ridge Management had $46 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management also initiated a $21.8 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new ATR investors: Renaissance Technologies, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR) but similarly valued. These stocks are Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW), Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (NYSE:DNB), Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH), Manhattan Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:MANH), Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX), Arch Coal Inc (NYSE:ACI), and Sensata Technologies Holding plc (NYSE:ST). This group of stocks’ market values resemble ATR’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| PNW | 18 | 143695 | 3 |
| DNB | 45 | 869485 | 16 |
| SYNH | 33 | 670476 | 5 |
| MANH | 28 | 408526 | 0 |
| NBIX | 32 | 900271 | 13 |
| ACI | 20 | 2910547 | 1 |
| ST | 32 | 1822315 | -4 |
| Average | 29.7 | 1103616 | 4.9 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1104 million. That figure was $332 million in ATR’s case. Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (NYSE:DNB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ATR is 55.6. 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 negative signal and 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 24.9% in 2021 through October 15th and surpassed the market again by 4.5 percentage points. Unfortunately ATR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); ATR investors were disappointed as the stock returned -8.7% since the end of June (through 10/15) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
