In this article we will check out the progression of hedge fund sentiment towards Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT) and determine whether it is a good investment right now. We at Insider Monkey like to examine what billionaires and hedge funds think of a company before spending days of research on it. Given their 2 and 20 payment structure, hedge funds have more incentives and resources than the average investor. The funds have access to expert networks and get tips from industry insiders. They also employ numerous Ivy League graduates and MBAs. Like everyone else, hedge funds perform miserably at times, but their consensus picks have historically outperformed the market after risk adjustments.
Is MBT a good stock to buy now? The best stock pickers were getting less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets shrunk by 1 in recent months. Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 19. Our calculations also showed that MBT isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks). There were 11 hedge funds in our database with MBT holdings at the end of June.
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the eyes of most market participants, hedge funds are viewed as slow, outdated investment tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at present, We look at the moguls of this club, around 850 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people handle the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by keeping track of their highest performing investments, Insider Monkey has come up with several investment strategies that have historically outstripped the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy defeated the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 13% since February 2017 (through November 17th) even though the market was up 65% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Donald Sussman of Paloma Partners
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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. Now we’re going to take a glance at the latest hedge fund action encompassing Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT).
Do Hedge Funds Think MBT Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At third quarter’s end, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -9% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards MBT over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT), with a stake worth $214.3 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Arrowstreet Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $71.9 million. GLG Partners, Millennium Management, and AQR Capital Management were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position HighVista Strategies allocated the biggest weight to Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT), around 0.38% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.21 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MBT.
Since Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who sold off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP dumped the largest stake of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $7.4 million in stock. Jonathan Lourie and Stuart Fiertz’s fund, Cheyne Capital, also dumped its stock, about $4.1 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT). These stocks are XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO), AGNC Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AGNC), Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM), Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP), Amedisys Inc (NASDAQ:AMED), Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ:MYL), and Chemed Corporation (NYSE:CHE). All of these stocks’ market caps match MBT’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| XPO | 39 | 2338039 | -1 |
| AGNC | 32 | 382410 | -5 |
| IRM | 25 | 112125 | 3 |
| MMP | 20 | 101183 | 5 |
| AMED | 31 | 343564 | 1 |
| MYL | 48 | 1749763 | 2 |
| CHE | 34 | 417170 | 8 |
| Average | 32.7 | 777751 | 1.9 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 32.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $778 million. That figure was $311 million in MBT’s case. Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ:MYL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Mobile TeleSystems Public Joint Stock Company (NYSE:MBT) is even less popular than MMP. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MBT is 19.8. 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. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards MBT. Our calculations showed that the top 20 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th but managed to beat the market again by 16.2 percentage points. Unfortunately MBT wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); MBT investors were disappointed as the stock returned 1.4% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/8) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in 2020.
Follow Mobile Telesystems Ojsc (NYSE:MBT)
Follow Mobile Telesystems Ojsc (NYSE:MBT)
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
