We at Insider Monkey have gone over 887 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of December 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) based on that data.
Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) investors should pay attention to an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers lately. Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) was in 76 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic was previously 73. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 64 hedge funds in our database with EXPE positions at the end of the third quarter. Our calculations also showed that EXPE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).
Brad Gerstner of Altimeter Capital
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Do Hedge Funds Think EXPE Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q4’s end, a total of 76 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 19% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 59 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in EXPE 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.
Among these funds, D1 Capital Partners held the most valuable stake in Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), which was worth $1603 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Melvin Capital Management which amassed $1579.2 million worth of shares. Altimeter Capital Management, PAR Capital Management, and Southpoint Capital Advisors 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 Clearfield Capital allocated the biggest weight to Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), around 13.97% of its 13F portfolio. PAR Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 12.85 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to EXPE.
As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Whale Rock Capital Management, managed by Alex Sacerdote, initiated the largest position in Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE). Whale Rock Capital Management had $192.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ricky Sandler’s Eminence Capital also initiated a $144.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new EXPE positions are D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Michael Rockefeller and Karl Kroeker’s Woodline Partners, and Guy Shahar’s DSAM Partners.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Pioneer Natural Resources Company (NYSE:PXD), Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX), PagSeguro Digital Ltd. (NYSE:PAGS), Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CHKP), SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC), Restaurant Brands International Inc (NYSE:QSR), and Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE:SNN). All of these stocks’ market caps match EXPE’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| PXD | 40 | 685798 | -2 |
| HOLX | 43 | 715967 | -7 |
| PAGS | 25 | 1840597 | 1 |
| CHKP | 26 | 775145 | -1 |
| SSNC | 49 | 2623844 | -5 |
| QSR | 39 | 2406995 | 6 |
| SNN | 12 | 78652 | 2 |
| Average | 33.4 | 1303857 | -0.9 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 33.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1304 million. That figure was $6595 million in EXPE’s case. SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE:SNN) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for EXPE is 90. 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 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks returned 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th but still managed to beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on EXPE as the stock returned 32.6% since the end of December (through 4/19) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
