Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 6 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) based on that data and determine whether they were really smart about the stock.
Is Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Money managers were buying. The number of bullish hedge fund positions improved by 6 recently. Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) was in 38 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 49. Our calculations also showed that VST isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
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. Now let’s view the new hedge fund action regarding Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST).
Do Hedge Funds Think VST Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 38 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 19% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 45 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in VST a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Howard Marks’s Oaktree Capital Management has the number one position in Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST), worth close to $512 million, amounting to 7.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $156.6 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money with similar optimism encompass Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital, John M. Angelo and Michael L. Gordon’s Angelo Gordon & Co and Matthew Barrett’s Glendon Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Avenue Capital allocated the biggest weight to Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST), around 68.06% of its 13F portfolio. Oaktree Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 7.43 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VST.
Consequently, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Luminus Management, managed by Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal, initiated the most outsized position in Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST). Luminus Management had $16.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments also made a $11.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new VST positions are Alex Duran and Scott Hendrickson’s Permian Investment Partners, Sander Gerber’s Hudson Bay Capital Management, and Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Berry Global Group Inc (NYSE:BERY), Aspen Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZPN), Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA), The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU), Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE), Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA), and Rexford Industrial Realty Inc (NYSE:REXR). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to VST’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BERY | 39 | 1245908 | 2 |
| AZPN | 20 | 620030 | -3 |
| ZNGA | 52 | 603900 | 3 |
| WU | 27 | 234768 | -4 |
| SEE | 33 | 626876 | 5 |
| UA | 48 | 1643556 | -3 |
| REXR | 29 | 358442 | 8 |
| Average | 35.4 | 761926 | 1.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 35.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $762 million. That figure was $1221 million in VST’s case. Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Aspen Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZPN) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VST is 61.4. 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 29.6% in 2021 and still beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on VST as the stock returned 28.5% since the end of Q3 (through 1/31) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Follow Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
