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. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 887 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of December 31st. In this article we look at what those investors think of IHS Markit Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFO).
Is INFO stock a buy or sell? IHS Markit Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFO) was in 59 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 44. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. INFO has seen an increase in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. There were 44 hedge funds in our database with INFO positions at the end of the third quarter. Our calculations also showed that INFO isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).
Matthew Halbower of Pentwater Capital
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Do Hedge Funds Think INFO Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q4’s end, a total of 59 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 34% from the third quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 29 hedge funds with a bullish position in INFO a year ago. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in IHS Markit Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFO) was held by Select Equity Group, which reported holding $379.6 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Citadel Investment Group with a $325.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Pentwater Capital Management, D E Shaw, and Millennium Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position ROAM Global Management allocated the biggest weight to IHS Markit Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFO), around 22.36% of its 13F portfolio. Sand Grove Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 12.23 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to INFO.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Pentwater Capital Management, managed by Matthew Halbower, assembled the most outsized position in IHS Markit Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFO). Pentwater Capital Management had $281.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. James Parsons’s Junto Capital Management also made a $88.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital, Robert Emil Zoellner’s Alpine Associates, and John Brennan’s Sirios Capital Management.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as IHS Markit Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at SYSCO Corporation (NYSE:SYY), Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX), Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDA), Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB), The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD), The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE:BK), and Microchip Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ:MCHP). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to INFO’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SYY | 40 | 2513070 | 7 |
| FCX | 61 | 2664729 | 4 |
| LBRDA | 26 | 908617 | 1 |
| BIIB | 63 | 2752928 | 4 |
| TTD | 35 | 1195309 | 12 |
| BK | 47 | 4689872 | -1 |
| MCHP | 45 | 961474 | 10 |
| Average | 45.3 | 2240857 | 5.3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 45.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2241 million. That figure was $2489 million in INFO’s case. Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDA) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. IHS Markit Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFO) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for INFO is 84.6. 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 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 5.3% in 2021 through March 19th and still beat the market by 0.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on INFO as the stock returned 6.4% since the end of Q4 (through 3/19) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
