Regency Centers Corp (REG) Hedge Funds Are Snapping Up

Earlier this year, many hedge funds were holding a larger percentage of their assets in cash than at any other time in recent memory, as fears that the market was due for a correction abounded. This led to many small-cap stocks being hit hard, as hedge funds, which tend to be some of their staunchest backers, liquidated their holdings. Now however, hedge funds appear to be growing more confident and putting their money back into equities, which has led to small-cap stocks taking off, with the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) having outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 10 percentage points since the end of June. In this article, we’ll see how this large shift in hedge fund activity impacted Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) .

Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. REG was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with REG positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare REG to other stocks including ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS), Plains GP Holdings LP (NYSE:PAGP), and Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE:RAD) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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Now, let’s take a look at the new action surrounding Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG).

Hedge fund activity in Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG)

At Q3’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a jump of 83% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 7 hedge funds with a bullish position in REG at the beginning of this year. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Millennium Management, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, has the most valuable position in Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG), worth close to $94 million and accounting for 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, with a $20.9 million position; the fund has less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers with similar optimism encompass Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have jumped into Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) headfirst. Balyasny Asset Management initiated the most outsized position in Regency Centers. The fund reportedly had $15.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Stevens Capital Management also initiated a $5.8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management, George Hall’s Clinton Group, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) but similarly valued. We will take a look at ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS), Plains GP Holdings LP (NYSE:PAGP), Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE:RAD), and Marine Harvest ASA (NYSE:MHG). This group of stocks’ market caps match REG’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $599 million. That figure was $165 million in REG’s case. Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE:RAD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Marine Harvest ASA (NYSE:MHG) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard RAD might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.