Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track more than 700 prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile gigantic failures like hedge funds’ recent losses in Valeant. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) in this article.
Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund interest lately. ZION was in 39 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 40 hedge funds in our database with ZION holdings at the end of the previous quarter. 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 Dicks Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS), Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE), and EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR) to gather more data points.
Follow Zions Bancorporation National Association (NASDAQ:ZION)
Follow Zions Bancorporation National Association (NASDAQ:ZION)
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.
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Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at the new action surrounding Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION).
How are hedge funds trading Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 39 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -3% from the second quarter of 2016. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, holds the most valuable position in Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION). Millennium Management has a $102.5 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Martin Whitman of Third Avenue Management, with a $58.8 million position; the fund has 2.7% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions encompass Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Emanuel J. Friedman’s EJF Capital and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.
