Hedge funds and other investment firms run by legendary investors like Israel Englander, Jeffrey Talpins and Ray Dalio are entrusted to manage billions of dollars of accredited investors’ money because they are without peer in the resources they use to identify the best investments for their chosen investment horizon. Moreover, they are more willing to invest a greater amount of their resources in small-cap stocks than big brokerage houses, and this is often where they generate their outperformance, which is why we pay particular attention to their best ideas in this space.
Is Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) a buy, sell, or hold? The best stock pickers are becoming more confident. The number of bullish hedge fund positions increased by 6 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that LVS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In today’s marketplace there are a large number of tools stock traders have at their disposal to grade their stock investments. A couple of the less utilized tools are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best money managers can outclass the market by a healthy amount (see the details here).
Let’s take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS).
How are hedge funds trading Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS)?
At Q4’s end, a total of 44 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 16% from the second quarter of 2018. On the other hand, there were a total of 32 hedge funds with a bullish position in LVS a year ago. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, D E Shaw held the most valuable stake in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), which was worth $250.5 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Melvin Capital Management which amassed $248.8 million worth of shares. Moreover, Two Sigma Advisors, Millennium Management, and Alkeon Capital Management were also bullish on Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.
As one would reasonably expect, some big names have jumped into Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) headfirst. Melvin Capital Management, managed by Gabriel Plotkin, created the most outsized position in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS). Melvin Capital Management had $248.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Panayotis Takis Sparaggis’s Alkeon Capital Management, Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital, and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) but similarly valued. These stocks are Marathon Petroleum Corp (NYSE:MPC), Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC), ABB Ltd (NYSE:ABB), and Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to LVS’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| MPC | 72 | 3505650 | 6 |
| NSC | 47 | 1521287 | -2 |
| ABB | 13 | 265329 | 2 |
| MET | 24 | 1032382 | 0 |
| Average | 39 | 1581162 | 1.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 39 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1581 million. That figure was $1610 million in LVS’s case. Marathon Petroleum Corp (NYSE:MPC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ABB Ltd (NYSE:ABB) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 19.7% through March 15th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 6.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on LVS, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 14.8% and outperformed the market as well.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
