Is Honda Motor Co Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:HMC) a good bet right now? We like to analyze hedge fund sentiment before doing days of in-depth research. We do so because hedge funds and other successful investors have numerous Ivy league graduates, expert network advisers, and supply chain tipsters working or consulting for them. There is not a shortage of news stories covering failed hedge fund investments (for some reason media paid a ton of attention to Ackman’s gigantic JC Penney and Valeant failures) and it is a fact that hedge funds’ picks don’t beat the market 100% of the time, but their consensus picks have historically done very well and have outperformed the market after adjusting for risk.
Is Honda Motor Co Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:HMC) a buy here? Hedge funds seem to be turning bullish. Among the funds in our database, the number of bullish hedge fund positions that are disclosed in regulatory 13F filings increased by three during the third quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare HMC to other stocks including Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT), Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE:KMI), and Banco Santander (Brasil) SA (ADR) (NYSE:BSBR) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Honda Motor Ltd (NYSE:HMC)
Follow Honda Motor Ltd (NYSE:HMC)
We care about hedge fund sentiment because historically hedge funds’ stock picks delivered strong risk adjusted returns. There are certain segments of the market where hedge funds’ stock picks performed much better than its benchmarks. For instance, the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks among the best performing hedge funds returned 18% over the last 12 months outpacing S&P 500 Index by more than 10 percentage points. We developed this strategy 2.5 years ago and started sharing its picks in our quarterly newsletter. It bested the S&P 500 Index ETFs by delivering a solid 39% vs. 22% gain for its benchmarks.
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With all of this in mind, let’s check out the new action encompassing Honda Motor Co Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:HMC).
What does the smart money think about Honda Motor Co Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:HMC)?
At the end of September, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, up by 38% from the second quarter of 2016. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in HMC over the last five quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, holds the biggest position in Honda Motor Co Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:HMC). Renaissance Technologies has a $103.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is William B. Gray of Orbis Investment Management, with a $14.8 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish comprise Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital. We should note that Orbis Investment Management is among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
