Is PerkinElmer, Inc. (PKI) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

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 have processed the filings of the more than 866 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their March 31st holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) was in 33 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 36. There were 31 hedge funds in our database with PKI holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that PKI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are a large number of metrics market participants have at their disposal to appraise stocks. A duo of the most under-the-radar metrics are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top hedge fund managers can outpace the market by a solid margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .

Alex Litowitz of Magnetar Capital

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. 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. 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 homepage. Keeping this in mind let’s take a gander at the latest hedge fund action surrounding PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI).

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 6% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 21 hedge funds with a bullish position in PKI a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) was held by Select Equity Group, which reported holding $1196.8 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Echo Street Capital Management with a $150.1 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Impax Asset Management, AQR Capital Management, and Renaissance Technologies. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Select Equity Group allocated the biggest weight to PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI), around 4.35% of its 13F portfolio. Integral Health Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 1.83 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PKI.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Renaissance Technologies, created the biggest position in PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI). Renaissance Technologies had $41.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also made a $40.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new PKI positions are Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI). We will take a look at FMC Corporation (NYSE:FMC), Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE:DPZ), Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO), Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH), argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX), Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM), and DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to PKI’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 30.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1225 million. That figure was $1749 million in PKI’s case. Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PKI is 53.9. 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 22.8% in 2021 through July 2nd and still beat the market by 6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on PKI as the stock returned 21.3% since the end of Q1 (through 7/2) 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.