Is Expedia Group Inc (EXPE) A Good Stock To Buy?

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. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 867 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE).

Is EXPE a good stock to buy? Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money recently. Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) was in 78 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 87. There were 87 hedge funds in our database with EXPE positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that EXPE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV 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. Keeping this in mind let’s take a look at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE).

Paul Reeder of PAR Capital Management

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 78 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -10% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in EXPE over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, D1 Capital Partners held the most valuable stake in Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), which was worth $1882 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was PAR Capital Management which amassed $664.8 million worth of shares. Melvin Capital Management, Alkeon Capital Management, and D E Shaw 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 PAR Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), around 15.95% of its 13F portfolio. Anomaly Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 11.41 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to EXPE.

Since Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) has faced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of fund managers that elected to cut their full holdings last quarter. Interestingly, Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter Capital Management cut the largest position of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, comprising about $60.1 million in stock, and Guy Shahar’s DSAM Partners was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $37.7 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 9 funds last quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) but similarly valued. These stocks are Sirius XM Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:SIRI), Kansas City Southern (NYSE:KSU), Upstart Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:UPST), Yum China Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:YUMC), The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG), Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES), and Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE:DVN). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to EXPE’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 35.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1967 million. That figure was $6471 million in EXPE’s case. Kansas City Southern (NYSE:KSU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Upstart Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:UPST) is the least popular one with only 23 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for EXPE is 72.9. 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 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately EXPE wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on EXPE were disappointed as the stock returned -1.7% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) 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 since 2019.

Suggested Articles:

• 25 Best Things to Do in NYC During COVID-19
• 10 Best Agriculture Stocks to Invest In
• 12 Best Large-cap Biotech Stocks To Buy Now

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