Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the second quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) based on that data and determine whether they were really smart about the stock.
Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) investors should pay attention to a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) was in 80 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistics is 105. There were 83 hedge funds in our database with CMCSA positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CMCSA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 56 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 34% through August 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. Currently, investors are pessimistic about commercial real estate investments. So, we are checking out this contrarian play to diversify our market exposure. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in America to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. Now let’s review the latest hedge fund action regarding Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA).
Hedge fund activity in Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA)
Heading into the third quarter of 2020, a total of 80 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -4% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 86 hedge funds with a bullish position in CMCSA a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Eagle Capital Management held the most valuable stake in Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), which was worth $1834.6 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Viking Global which amassed $1111.9 million worth of shares. Orbis Investment Management, First Pacific Advisors LLC, and Soroban Capital Partners 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 3G Sahana Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), around 31.29% of its 13F portfolio. BlueDrive Global Investors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 18.93 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CMCSA.
Seeing as Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) has faced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there were a few hedge funds who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, John Smith Clark’s Southpoint Capital Advisors cut the largest stake of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, totaling about $37.8 million in stock. James Parsons’s fund, Junto Capital Management, also dropped its stock, about $34.5 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA). These stocks are Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE:TM), AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL), salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM), SAP SE (NYSE:SAP), Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX), and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to CMCSA’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TM | 13 | 719379 | 2 |
| ABBV | 89 | 6226917 | 8 |
| ORCL | 49 | 2312027 | 1 |
| CRM | 107 | 9769139 | -10 |
| SAP | 16 | 1253641 | 1 |
| CVX | 50 | 1585417 | -3 |
| ABT | 67 | 3504346 | 5 |
| Average | 55.9 | 3624409 | 0.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 55.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3624 million. That figure was $7207 million in CMCSA’s case. salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE:TM) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CMCSA is 60.5. 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 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.2% in 2020 through August 24th but still beat the market by 20.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CMCSA, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 12.4% since the end of June and outperformed the market as well.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
