After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of September 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG).
Is Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG) going to take off soon? The best stock pickers were getting less optimistic. The number of bullish hedge fund bets shrunk by 9 in recent months. Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG) was in 34 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 57. Our calculations also showed that HIG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). There were 43 hedge funds in our database with HIG positions at the end of the second quarter.
Jeffrey Tannenbaum of Fir Tree
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. With all of this in mind let’s take a gander at the key hedge fund action encompassing Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG).
Do Hedge Funds Think HIG Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -21% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in HIG over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG) was held by Adage Capital Management, which reported holding $140.3 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by D E Shaw with a $111.1 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, Millennium Management, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Prana Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG), around 3.82% of its 13F portfolio. Fir Tree is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 1.77 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HIG.
Since Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG) has faced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few fund managers that elected to cut their full holdings heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Matthew Stadelman’s Diamond Hill Capital sold off the largest investment of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, worth close to $439.6 million in stock, and Benjamin Pass’s TOMS Capital was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $36.9 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 9 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG). These stocks are Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES), Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE:DVN), ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:ZI), Caesars Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ:CZR), Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS), Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RCI), and Splunk Inc (NASDAQ:SPLK). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to HIG’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| HES | 27 | 726783 | -4 |
| DVN | 48 | 1400610 | -2 |
| ZI | 57 | 1960736 | 22 |
| CZR | 64 | 1882913 | -9 |
| CS | 8 | 76139 | -2 |
| RCI | 17 | 366650 | 0 |
| SPLK | 47 | 1251280 | 0 |
| Average | 38.3 | 1095016 | 0.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 38.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1095 million. That figure was $942 million in HIG’s case. Caesars Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ:CZR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Hartford Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:HIG) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for HIG is 37.1. 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. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 surpassed the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately HIG wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); HIG investors were disappointed as the stock returned -5.4% since the end of September (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 in 2021.
Follow Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE:HIG)
Follow Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE:HIG)
Suggested Articles:
- 15 Most Successful Products From Shark Tank
- 30 Best Hotels in America in 2021
- 10 Best Agriculture Technology Stocks To Buy Now
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
