Heartland Mid Cap Value Fund recently released its third-quarter investor letter – a copy of which is available for download here. The fund posted a return of 3.1% for the quarter, underperforming its benchmark, the Russell Midcap Value Index which returned 6.4% in the same quarter. You should check out Heartland’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of 2021.
In the Q3 2020 Investor Letter, Heartland Advisors highlighted a few stocks and FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE:FE) is one of them. FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE:FE) is an electric services company. Year-to-date, FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE:FE) stock lost 37.6% and on December 18th it had a closing price of $30.34. Here is what Heartland Advisors said:
“The portfolio’s Utility names lagged on a relative basis with the shortfall stemming from a stock-specific issue in the group. FirstEnergy (FE) is a business we’ve owned in the past and sold out of after shares had appreciated following its successful transition to a pure regulated utility through the divestiture of its merchant power unit.
We initiated a new stake in FirstEnergy in March after shares sold off due to concerns that the recession would have an outsized impact on the company’s industrial-oriented client base. Similar to our successful experience in the past, we felt that the company was attractive given its meaningful discount to its peers.
Subsequent to our investment, FirstEnergy was named in an investigation related to $60 million of payments made by the merchant power entity to Ohio politicians. Our initial reaction when news broke was to reduce our exposure to the company, however, we continued our due diligence on the matter and believe that market reaction overestimated the likely fallout from the investigation.
As shares fell in price, we added to our position in the belief that as the matter proceeds, some of the clouds casting a shadow on the business will subside.”
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Earlier this month, we published an article revealing that FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE:FE) is one of the 10 best dividend-paying stocks to buy under $50.
In Q3 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE:FE) stock increased by about 44% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers believe in FirstEnergy’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE:FE) isn’t ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 216% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 121 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.
Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world 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. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website:
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
