Is Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (HBAN) Worthy of Your Portfolio?

Before we spend days researching a stock idea we’d like to take a look at how hedge funds and billionaire investors recently traded that stock. S&P 500 Index returned about 7.6% during the last 12 months ending November 21, 2016. Most investors don’t notice that less than 49% of the stocks in the index outperformed the index. This means you (or a monkey throwing a dart) have less than an even chance of beating the market by randomly picking a stock. On the other hand, the top 30 mid-cap stocks among the best performing hedge funds had an average return of 18% during the same period. Hedge funds had bad stock picks like everyone else. We are sure you have read about their worst picks, like Valeant, in the media over the past year. So, taking cues from hedge funds isn’t a foolproof strategy, but it seems to work on average. In this article, we will take a look at what hedge funds think about Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN).

In Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN)’s case, it looks like money managers are taking a bullish view. During the third quarter, the number of investors followed by Insider Monkey long the stock inched up by one to 32. However, the level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as CoStar Group Inc (NASDAQ:CSGP), Yandex NV (NASDAQ:YNDX), and Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPB) to gather more data points.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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With all of this in mind, let’s go over the latest action surrounding Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN).

How have hedgies been trading Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN)?

At the end of September, 32 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on Huntington Bancshares Incorporated, up by 3% from the end of the second quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Levin Capital Strategies, managed by John A. Levin, holds the most valuable position in Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN). Levin Capital Strategies has a $95.3 million position in the stock, comprising 1.4% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund is Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, with a $80.6 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish encompass Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Neil Chriss’ Hutchin Hill Capital, and Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital.