Is RJF Stock A Buy or Sell?

The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the fourth quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of December 31st. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF).

Is RJF stock a buy? Money managers were in a bullish mood. The number of long hedge fund positions rose by 6 lately. Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) was in 34 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 35. Our calculations also showed that RJF isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings). There were 28 hedge funds in our database with RJF holdings at the end of September.

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here).

Glenn Greenberg of Brave Warrior Capital

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. With all of this in mind let’s analyze the key hedge fund action surrounding Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF).

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

At Q4’s end, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 21% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in RJF over the last 22 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Brave Warrior Capital held the most valuable stake in Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF), which was worth $197.1 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Fisher Asset Management which amassed $85.8 million worth of shares. Balyasny Asset Management, Gillson Capital, and Holocene Advisors 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 Brave Warrior Capital allocated the biggest weight to Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF), around 7.25% of its 13F portfolio. Gillson Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 3.16 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to RJF.

Now, key hedge funds have jumped into Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) headfirst. Holocene Advisors, managed by Brandon Haley, assembled the most outsized position in Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF). Holocene Advisors had $27.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors also initiated a $24.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Ravi Chopra’s Azora Capital, Gregg Moskowitz’s Interval Partners, and Peter Seuss’s Prana Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Packaging Corporation Of America (NYSE:PKG), Credicorp Ltd. (NYSE:BAP), Pembina Pipeline Corp (NYSE:PBA), Entegris Inc (NASDAQ:ENTG), Avery Dennison Corporation (NYSE:AVY), Sociedad Quimica y Minera (NYSE:SQM), and Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble RJF’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $314 million. That figure was $581 million in RJF’s case. Entegris Inc (NASDAQ:ENTG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Pembina Pipeline Corp (NYSE:PBA) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for RJF is 89.1. 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 returned 7.9% in 2021 through April 1st but still managed to beat the market by 0.4 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on RJF as the stock returned 33.2% since the end of December (through 4/1) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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