The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the second quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of June 28. 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 Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH).
Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. Our calculations also showed that SYNH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 25.8% year to date (through May 30th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Unlike some fund managers who are betting on Dow reaching 40000 in a year, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. Let’s take a look at the latest hedge fund action regarding Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH).
What have hedge funds been doing with Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH)?
Heading into the third quarter of 2019, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -23% from the first quarter of 2019. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards SYNH over the last 16 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Viking Global, managed by Andreas Halvorsen, holds the biggest position in Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH). Viking Global has a $91.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.4% of its 13F portfolio. On Viking Global’s heels is Cardinal Capital, led by Amy Minella, holding a $41.7 million position; 1.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish comprise David Brown’s Hawk Ridge Management, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital.
Judging by the fact that Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH) has faced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Israel Englander’s Millennium Management sold off the largest investment of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising about $48.9 million in stock. David Rosen’s fund, Rubric Capital Management, also sold off its stock, about $23.1 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 6 funds last quarter.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH). These stocks are Hudson Pacific Properties Inc (NYSE:HPP), W.R. Grace & Co. (NYSE:GRA), United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC), and CACI International Inc (NYSE:CACI). This group of stocks’ market values resemble SYNH’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| HPP | 17 | 320087 | 5 |
| GRA | 36 | 1898870 | 0 |
| UMC | 12 | 100702 | -3 |
| CACI | 29 | 393234 | 16 |
| Average | 23.5 | 678223 | 4.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $678 million. That figure was $256 million in SYNH’s case. W.R. Grace & Co. (NYSE:GRA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks (view the video below) among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on SYNH, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 4.1% during the third quarter and outperformed the market.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
