Is First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (FR) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

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. Insider Monkey finished processing 867 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, 2021. What do these smart investors think about First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR)?

First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR) was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 30. FR shareholders have witnessed an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 22 hedge funds in our database with FR positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that FR 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. Now let’s take a look at the recent hedge fund action surrounding First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR).

David Siegel of Two Sigma Advisors

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

At the end of September, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 14% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 26 hedge funds with a bullish position in FR a year ago. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Waterfront Capital Partners held the most valuable stake in First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR), which was worth $51.5 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $49 million worth of shares. Land & Buildings Investment Management, Two Sigma Advisors, and Long Pond Capital 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 Land & Buildings Investment Management allocated the biggest weight to First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR), around 4.85% of its 13F portfolio. Waterfront Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 3.62 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FR.

Consequently, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Tudor Investment Corp, managed by Paul Tudor Jones, created the biggest position in First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR). Tudor Investment Corp had $11.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Renaissance Technologies also initiated a $8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new FR positions are Peter Algert’s Algert Global, Mika Toikka’s AlphaCrest Capital Management, and Renee Yao’s Neo Ivy Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR) but similarly valued. These stocks are Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT), ADT Inc. (NYSE:ADT), Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC), Axalta Coating Systems Ltd (NYSE:AXTA), Celsius Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CELH), Kornit Digital Ltd. (NASDAQ:KRNT), and Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to FR’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $455 million. That figure was $252 million in FR’s case. Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ADT Inc. (NYSE:ADT) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for FR is 50.5. 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 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 31.1% in 2021 through December 9th and still beat the market by 5.1 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on FR as the stock returned 20.5% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/9) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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