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 887 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their December 31st holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.
Is WELL stock a buy? Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 27. WELL investors should pay attention to an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers lately. There were 25 hedge funds in our database with WELL holdings at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that WELL isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are a multitude of signals stock traders put to use to assess stocks. A couple of the best signals are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can outclass the S&P 500 by a solid margin (see the details here).
Ricky Sandler of Eminence 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. Now let’s analyze the key hedge fund action surrounding Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL).
Do Hedge Funds Think WELL Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 4% from the third quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in WELL 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.
The largest stake in Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL) was held by Zimmer Partners, which reported holding $218.9 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Eminence Capital with a $93.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Citadel Investment Group, Senator Investment Group, and Adage Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Zimmer Partners allocated the biggest weight to Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL), around 3.21% of its 13F portfolio. Senator Investment Group is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.92 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to WELL.
There weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions in the stock during the fourth quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL). We will take a look at Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN), Marathon Petroleum Corp (NYSE:MPC), Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS), Ecopetrol S.A. (NYSE:EC), Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), Paycom Software Inc (NYSE:PAYC), and Sun Life Financial Inc. (NYSE:SLF). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to WELL’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| WCN | 35 | 626810 | 3 |
| MPC | 43 | 1883612 | -13 |
| ZS | 35 | 1208264 | 9 |
| EC | 7 | 102902 | 0 |
| IBKR | 28 | 1108907 | 0 |
| PAYC | 35 | 748935 | -3 |
| SLF | 19 | 87210 | 6 |
| Average | 28.9 | 823806 | 0.3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 28.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $824 million. That figure was $538 million in WELL’s case. Marathon Petroleum Corp (NYSE:MPC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ecopetrol S.A. (NYSE:EC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for WELL is 61.3. 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 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on WELL as the stock returned 16.9% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 4/19) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
