JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 867 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of September 30th. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) makes for a good investment right now.

JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months. JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) was in 31 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 42. Our calculations also showed that JBLU isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV 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. Now we’re going to take a peek at the key hedge fund action surrounding JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU).

John Overdeck of Two Sigma Advisors

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 31 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 3% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards JBLU over the last 25 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) was held by Millennium Management, which reported holding $48.9 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Renaissance Technologies with a $43.6 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included PAR Capital Management, Balyasny Asset Management, and Prentice Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Prentice Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU), around 6.35% of its 13F portfolio. Jade Capital Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 4.47 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to JBLU.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have jumped into JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) headfirst. Jade Capital Advisors, managed by Robert Vincent McHugh, established the most outsized position in JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU). Jade Capital Advisors had $7.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management also made a $5.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new JBLU positions are John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Richard SchimeláandáLawrence Sapanski’s Cinctive Capital Management, and Qing Li’s Sciencast Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI), The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE:HHC), Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo – SABESP (NYSE:SBS), Driven Brands Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:DRVN), Vimeo Inc. (NASDAQ:VMEO), Diversey Holdings, Ltd. (NASDAQ:DSEY), and The Wendy’s Company (NASDAQ:WEN). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to JBLU’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $714 million. That figure was $371 million in JBLU’s case. Vimeo Inc. (NASDAQ:VMEO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo – SABESP (NYSE:SBS) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for JBLU is 69.8. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately JBLU wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on JBLU were disappointed as the stock returned -12.2% since the end of September (through 11/30) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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