PerkinElmer, Inc. (PKI) Fell Out Of Favor With Hedge Funds

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 at Insider Monkey have plowed through 873 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI).

PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) was in 32 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 36. PKI has experienced a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. There were 33 hedge funds in our database with PKI positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that PKI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 79 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. 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. 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 homepage. Keeping this in mind let’s analyze the fresh hedge fund action regarding PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI).

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

At second quarter’s end, a total of 32 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -3% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 30 hedge funds with a bullish position in PKI a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Select Equity Group held the most valuable stake in PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI), which was worth $1364.3 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Impax Asset Management which amassed $183.9 million worth of shares. Echo Street Capital Management, AQR Capital Management, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Select Equity Group allocated the biggest weight to PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI), around 4.67% of its 13F portfolio. Integral Health Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 1.78 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PKI.

Since PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) has experienced bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes heading into Q3. It’s worth mentioning that Renaissance Technologies dumped the biggest stake of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $41.5 million in stock. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s fund, Adage Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $8.9 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds heading into Q3.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) but similarly valued. These stocks are Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS), J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT), Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC), Principal Financial Group Inc (NASDAQ:PFG), Huazhu Group Limited (NASDAQ:HTHT), Zendesk Inc (NYSE:ZEN), and Bill.com Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BILL). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to PKI’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 37 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1149 million. That figure was $1969 million in PKI’s case. Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Principal Financial Group Inc (NASDAQ:PFG) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PKI is 50.7. 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 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 24.9% in 2021 through October 15th and still beat the market by 4.5 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on PKI as the stock returned 10% since the end of the second quarter (through 10/15) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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