Hedge funds and large money managers usually invest with a focus on the long-term horizon and, therefore, short-lived dips on the charts, usually don’t make them change their opinion towards a company. The second half of 2015 and the first few months of this year was a stressful period for hedge funds. However, things have been taking a turn for the better in the second half of this year. Small-cap stocks which hedge funds are usually overweight outperformed the market by double digits and it may be a good time to pay attention to hedge funds’ picks before it is too late. In this article we are going to analyze the hedge fund sentiment towards Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT).
Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT) was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. LPT shareholders have witnessed a decrease in support from the world’s most successful money managers lately. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with LPT holdings at the end of the previous quarter. 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 Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ:FTR), TreeHouse Foods Inc. (NYSE:THS), and Black Knight Financial Services Inc (NYSE:BKFS) to gather more data points.
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What does the smart money think about Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a 7% dip from the previous quarter, after a brief rebound in sentiment in Q2. There were a total of 16 hedge funds with a bullish position in LPT at the beginning of this year. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management has the number one position in Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT), worth close to $17.3 million. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Balyasny Asset Management, led by Dmitry Balyasny, which holds a $15.6 million position. Some other peers that hold long positions encompass Eduardo Abush’s Waterfront Capital Partners, Ray Carroll’s Breton Hill Capital, and Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are 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.
We already know that not all hedge funds are bullish on the stock and some hedge funds actually cashed in their positions entirely. It’s worth mentioning that Michael Swotes’ Castle Ridge Investment Management cashed in the biggest stake of all the investors monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $3.6 million in stock. David E. Shaw’s fund, D E Shaw, also said goodbye to its stock, about $1.1 million worth.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT) but similarly valued. These stocks are Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ:FTR), TreeHouse Foods Inc. (NYSE:THS), Black Knight Financial Services Inc (NYSE:BKFS), and Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (ADR) (NYSE:PAC). This group of stocks’ market values match LPT’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| FTR | 24 | 135884 | -1 |
| THS | 21 | 297758 | -3 |
| BKFS | 9 | 15797 | -2 |
| PAC | 5 | 65220 | -1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 15 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $129 million. That figure was $77 million in LPT’s case. Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ:FTR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (ADR) (NYSE:PAC) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard FTR might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: None