Is CHRW Stock A Buy or Sell?

The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the fourth quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of December 31st. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW).

Is CHRW stock a buy? The best stock pickers were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund bets improved by 7 recently. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) was in 29 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 32. Our calculations also showed that CHRW isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Alex Litowitz of Magnetar Capital

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, the CBD market is growing at a 33% annualized rate, so we are taking a closer look at this under-the-radar hemp stock. We go through lists like the 10 best biotech stocks under $10 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. With all of this in mind we’re going to go over the latest hedge fund action encompassing C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW).

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

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 32% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CHRW over the last 22 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group has the biggest position in C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW), worth close to $201.2 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, which holds a $135.5 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other professional money managers that hold long positions include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Quantamental Technologies allocated the biggest weight to C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW), around 1.72% of its 13F portfolio. Carlson Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.39 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CHRW.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, assembled the largest position in C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW). Balyasny Asset Management had $37.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital also initiated a $11 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CHRW investors: Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital, and Gregg Moskowitz’s Interval Partners.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) but similarly valued. We will take a look at United Airlines Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:UAL), Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN), FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS), China Southern Airlines Co Ltd (NYSE:ZNH), Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH), Evergy, Inc. (NYSE:EVRG), and Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to CHRW’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 34 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1308 million. That figure was $622 million in CHRW’s case. Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand China Southern Airlines Co Ltd (NYSE:ZNH) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CHRW is 60. 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 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 12.2% in 2021 through April 12th and surpassed the market again by 1.5 percentage points. Unfortunately CHRW wasn’t nearly as popular as these 30 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); CHRW investors were disappointed as the stock returned 6.1% since the end of December (through 4/12) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.

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