A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30th, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB).
Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB) was in 28 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 46. KMB has seen a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. There were 37 hedge funds in our database with KMB positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that KMB 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 let’s take a gander at the key hedge fund action regarding Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB).
Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management
Do Hedge Funds Think KMB Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 28 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -24% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 41 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in KMB a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Holocene Advisors was the largest shareholder of Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB), with a stake worth $125.3 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Holocene Advisors was Bridgewater Associates, which amassed a stake valued at $87.2 million. Citadel Investment Group, AQR Capital Management, and Scopus Asset 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 Holocene Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB), around 0.68% of its 13F portfolio. Scopus Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.66 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to KMB.
Seeing as Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there was a specific group of fund managers who sold off their full holdings heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Matthew Stadelman’s Diamond Hill Capital dropped the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $154.6 million in stock. Steven Boyd’s fund, Armistice Capital, also dumped its stock, about $19.8 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 9 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB). We will take a look at L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LHX), Veeva Systems Inc (NYSE:VEEV), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (NYSE:BBVA), Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG), Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH), Lloyds Banking Group PLC (NYSE:LYG), and Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to KMB’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LHX | 29 | 492448 | -13 |
| VEEV | 44 | 1631737 | 0 |
| BBVA | 10 | 310429 | 1 |
| DDOG | 62 | 4934612 | 6 |
| APH | 26 | 897948 | -13 |
| LYG | 8 | 16143 | 0 |
| BCS | 12 | 105770 | 1 |
| Average | 27.3 | 1198441 | -2.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 27.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1198 million. That figure was $410 million in KMB’s case. Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Lloyds Banking Group PLC (NYSE:LYG) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for KMB is 32.8. 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 31.1% in 2021 through December 9th and beat the market again by 5.1 percentage points. Unfortunately KMB wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on KMB were disappointed as the stock returned 3.3% since the end of September (through 12/9) 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.
