Is KRC Stock A Buy or Sell?

Many prominent investors, including Warren Buffett, David Tepper and Stan Druckenmiller, have been cautious regarding the current bull market and missed out as the stock market reached another high in recent weeks. On the other hand, technology hedge funds weren’t timid and registered double digit market beating gains. Financials, energy and industrial stocks initially suffered the most but many of these stocks delivered strong returns since November and hedge funds actually increased their positions in these stocks. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment towards Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC) changed recently.

Is KRC stock a buy? Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC) has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC) was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 26. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with KRC holdings at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that KRC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

In the financial world there are a large number of gauges shareholders put to use to analyze their stock investments. A couple of the most under-the-radar gauges are hedge fund and insider trading moves. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best hedge fund managers can beat their index-focused peers by a significant amount (see the details here).

Stuart Zimmer of Zimmer Partners

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, the CBD market is growing at a 33% annualized rate, so we are taking a closer look at this under-the-radar hemp stock. We go through lists like the 10 best biotech stocks under $10 to identify the next stock with 10x upside potential. 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to analyze the recent hedge fund action surrounding Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC).

Do Hedge Funds Think KRC Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At fourth quarter’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 32% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 18 hedge funds with a bullish position in KRC a year ago. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Zimmer Partners, managed by Stuart J. Zimmer, holds the number one position in Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC). Zimmer Partners has a $54.5 million position in the stock, comprising 0.8% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Waterfront Capital Partners, led by Eduardo Abush, holding a $43.6 million position; 4.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other professional money managers that are bullish comprise Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, David Fear’s Thunderbird Partners and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Masterton Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC), around 8.85% of its 13F portfolio. Hill Winds Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 4.66 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to KRC.

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Zimmer Partners, managed by Stuart J. Zimmer, established the largest position in Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC). Zimmer Partners had $54.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Eduardo Abush’s Waterfront Capital Partners also made a $43.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new KRC investors: David Fear’s Thunderbird Partners, Charles Fitzgerald’s V3 Capital, and Stephen Mykijewycz’s Masterton Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC) but similarly valued. These stocks are Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:CASY), Ballard Power Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:BLDP), ANGI Inc (NASDAQ:ANGI), Woori Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:WF), CubeSmart (NYSE:CUBE), DXC Technology Company (NYSE:DXC), and Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to KRC’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $309 million. That figure was $252 million in KRC’s case. DXC Technology Company (NYSE:DXC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Woori Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:WF) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Kilroy Realty Corp (NYSE:KRC) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for KRC is 70.4. 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 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on KRC as the stock returned 19.3% since the end of Q4 (through 4/19) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.