Is Texas Instruments (TXN) Stock A Buy or Sell?

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the fourth quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) based on that data.

Is Texas Instruments (TXN) stock a buy or sell? Hedge funds were becoming hopeful. The number of bullish hedge fund bets went up by 1 in recent months. Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) was in 56 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 60. Our calculations also showed that TXN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings). There were 55 hedge funds in our database with TXN positions at the end of the third quarter.

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Phillip Gross of Adage Capital

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for 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 hydrogen fuel cell 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 (or at the end of this article). Now let’s take a look at the latest hedge fund action regarding Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN).

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

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 56 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 2% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards TXN over the last 22 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Generation Investment Management held the most valuable stake in Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN), which was worth $514.8 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was AQR Capital Management which amassed $453.5 million worth of shares. Diamond Hill Capital, Millennium Management, and Adage Capital Management 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 Bristol Gate Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN), around 4.84% of its 13F portfolio. Heathbridge Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 4.67 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to TXN.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Hudson Bay Capital Management, managed by Sander Gerber, created the largest position in Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN). Hudson Bay Capital Management had $49.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. George Soros’s Soros Fund Management also initiated a $10.6 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new TXN investors: Mark R. Freeman’s Socorro Asset Management, Andrew Byington’s Appian Way Asset Management, and Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) but similarly valued. These stocks are Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON), United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS), Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP), Bristol Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY), Linde plc (NYSE:LIN), Shopify Inc (NYSE:SHOP), and Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (NYSE:BUD). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble TXN’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 64.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3690 million. That figure was $2497 million in TXN’s case. Bristol Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (NYSE:BUD) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for TXN is 50.8. 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 gained 5.3% in 2021 through March 19th and still beat the market by 0.8 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on TXN as the stock returned 7.9% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 3/19) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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

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