Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track nearly 900 active prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile failures like hedge funds’ 2018 losses in Facebook and Apple. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) in this article.
Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) has seen a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) was in 35 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 49. There were 44 hedge funds in our database with VOYA holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that VOYA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
Robert Pohly of Samlyn Capital
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. With all of this in mind we’re going to view the recent hedge fund action encompassing Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA).
Do Hedge Funds Think VOYA Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q3’s end, a total of 35 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -20% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 49 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in VOYA a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Pzena Investment Management was the largest shareholder of Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA), with a stake worth $295.3 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Pzena Investment Management was Samlyn Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $253.9 million. Empyrean Capital Partners, Impax Asset Management, and Levin Easterly Partners 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 BlueMar Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA), around 3.86% of its 13F portfolio. Levin Easterly Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 3.73 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VOYA.
Because Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) has experienced a decline in interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there were a few funds who sold off their full holdings heading into Q4. Interestingly, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management said goodbye to the biggest investment of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $36.3 million in stock, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $16.6 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 9 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) but similarly valued. These stocks are Woori Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:WF), Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS), BlackLine, Inc. (NASDAQ:BL), Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE:NLSN), Descartes Systems Group (NASDAQ:DSGX), Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS), and Colfax Corporation (NYSE:CFX). This group of stocks’ market values resemble VOYA’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| WF | 2 | 3608 | 0 |
| GTLS | 22 | 350268 | -5 |
| BL | 18 | 326955 | -2 |
| NLSN | 24 | 1476397 | -4 |
| DSGX | 14 | 379447 | -1 |
| LFUS | 24 | 526040 | -3 |
| CFX | 23 | 819033 | -8 |
| Average | 18.1 | 554535 | -3.3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 18.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $555 million. That figure was $968 million in VOYA’s case. Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE:NLSN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Woori Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:WF) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VOYA is 67.4. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately VOYA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VOYA were disappointed as the stock returned 1.5% since the end of the third quarter (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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Voya Financial Inc. (NYSE:VOYA)
Follow Voya Financial Inc. (NYSE:VOYA)
Suggested Articles:
- 10 Best Alternative Fuel Stocks to Buy Now
- 25 Best US Cities To Live with Asthma
- 11 Countries with Highest Natural Gas Reserves
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
