How do you pick the next stock to invest in? One way would be to spend hours of research browsing through thousands of publicly traded companies. However, an easier way is to look at the stocks that smart money investors are collectively bullish on. Hedge funds and other institutional investors usually invest large amounts of capital and have to conduct due diligence while choosing their next pick. They don’t always get it right, but, on average, their stock picks historically generated strong returns after adjusting for known risk factors. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the recent hedge fund activity surrounding Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB (ADR) (NYSE:FMX).
Is Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB (ADR) (NYSE:FMX) ready to rally soon? It looks like money managers are becoming hopeful, since the number of long hedge fund bets that are revealed through the 13F filings inched up last quarter. In this way, at the end of September, 16 funds tracked by Insider Monkey held shares of FMX. However, 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 Visa Inc (NYSE:V), Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), and The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) to gather more data points.
Follow Fomento Economico Mexicano S (NYSE:FMX)
Follow Fomento Economico Mexicano S (NYSE:FMX)
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
ImageFlow/Shutterstock.com
Now, let’s take a glance at the new action surrounding Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB (ADR) (NYSE:FMX).
Hedge fund activity in Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB (ADR) (NYSE:FMX)
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, 16 funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, up by 7% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 15 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in FMX heading into this year. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management has the most valuable position in Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB (ADR) (NYSE:FMX), worth close to $40.3 million. On AQR Capital Management’s heels is Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, with a $24.7 million position. Remaining peers with similar optimism consist of Richard Driehaus’ Driehaus Capital, Howard Marks’ Oaktree Capital Management, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital. 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.
