Is Corelogic (CLGX) Stock A Buy or Sell?

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 fourth 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 Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) based on that data.

Is CLGX stock a buy or sell? Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months. Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) was in 46 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 45. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 45 hedge funds in our database with CLGX holdings at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that CLGX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 197% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points. Our short strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by 20 percentage points annually (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Matthew Halbower of Pentwater Capital

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. We go through lists like the 10 best hydrogen fuel cell stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage (or at the end of this article). Now we’re going to take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX).

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

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 46 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 2% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 28 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in CLGX a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) was held by Senator Investment Group, which reported holding $536.1 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by TIG Advisors with a $152.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Pentwater Capital Management, D E Shaw, and Nitorum Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position BCK Capital allocated the biggest weight to Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX), around 12.67% of its 13F portfolio. Senator Investment Group is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 10.13 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CLGX.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Alpine Associates, managed by Robert Emil Zoellner, initiated the most valuable position in Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX). Alpine Associates had $23 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Wayne Yu’s BCK Capital also initiated a $15.9 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CLGX investors: Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments, Orkun Kilic’s Berry Street Capital, and Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) but similarly valued. These stocks are Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NASDAQ:PAA), Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE:ORI), NeoGenomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NEO), Apartment Income REIT Corp. (NYSE:AIRC), Brunswick Corporation (NYSE:BC), YETI Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:YETI), and Nevro Corp (NYSE:NVRO). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble CLGX’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 22 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $409 million. That figure was $1823 million in CLGX’s case. Brunswick Corporation (NYSE:BC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NASDAQ:PAA) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CLGX is 86. 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 5.3% in 2021 through March 19th and still beat the market by 0.8 percentage points. Unfortunately CLGX wasn’t nearly as popular as these 30 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on CLGX were disappointed as the stock returned 2.9% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 3/19) 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 since 2019.

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