Is Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (MTD) A Good Stock To Buy?

Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of September. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 900 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.

Is MTD a good stock to buy now? Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD) was in 31 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 35. MTD investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund interest recently. There were 35 hedge funds in our database with MTD holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that MTD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Now we’re going to take a look at the recent hedge fund action surrounding Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD).

Richard Chilton of Chilton Investment Company

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 31 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -11% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 30 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in MTD a year ago. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Impax Asset Management held the most valuable stake in Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD), which was worth $185.5 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Echo Street Capital Management which amassed $170.3 million worth of shares. AQR Capital Management, Chilton Investment Company, and Arrowstreet Capital 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 Chilton Investment Company allocated the biggest weight to Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD), around 4.06% of its 13F portfolio. Echo Street Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.2 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MTD.

Because Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD) has experienced a decline in interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of money managers that slashed their positions entirely heading into Q4. Interestingly, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $17.1 million in stock. Ray Dalio’s fund, Bridgewater Associates, also said goodbye to its stock, about $3.7 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD). We will take a look at HubSpot Inc (NYSE:HUBS), HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ), The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB), West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST), Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), LyondellBasell Industries NV (NYSE:LYB), and Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE:BF). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to MTD’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 40.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2114 million. That figure was $1109 million in MTD’s case. Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST) is the least popular one with only 29 bullish hedge fund positions. Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MTD is 30.5. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on MTD as the stock returned 9.9% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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