The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey have plowed through 867 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 September 30th, when the S&P 500 Index was trading around the 4300 level. Since then investors decided to bet on the economic recovery and a stock market rebound even though we experienced a temporary correction in January. In this article you are going to find out whether hedge funds thought IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) was a good investment heading into the fourth quarter and how the stock traded in comparison to the top hedge fund picks.
IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) was in 66 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 69. IQV shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund interest in recent months. There were 69 hedge funds in our database with IQV positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that IQV 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 review the recent hedge fund action encompassing IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV).
Dan Loeb of Third Point
Do Hedge Funds Think IQV Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q3’s end, a total of 66 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -4% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 64 hedge funds with a bullish position in IQV a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Farallon Capital, holds the largest position in IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV). Farallon Capital has a $647.7 million position in the stock, comprising 3.3% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, which holds a $369.6 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other professional money managers that hold long positions comprise Ian Simm’s Impax Asset Management, Dan Loeb’s Third Point and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position RIT Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV), around 14.86% of its 13F portfolio. Cowbird Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 8.73 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IQV.
Because IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) has experienced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, Robert Pitts’s Steadfast Capital Management dropped the largest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $281 million in stock, and Larry Robbins’s Glenview Capital was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $37.6 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV). These stocks are Synopsys, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNPS), BCE Inc. (NYSE:BCE), eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR), The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ:KHC), TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL), and Carrier Global Corporation (NYSE:CARR). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble IQV’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SNPS | 43 | 2343901 | 2 |
| BCE | 15 | 129110 | 1 |
| EBAY | 49 | 2097933 | 10 |
| PLTR | 35 | 1634776 | 9 |
| KHC | 33 | 12321504 | 0 |
| TEL | 41 | 2188058 | 2 |
| CARR | 46 | 1324758 | 0 |
| Average | 37.4 | 3148577 | 3.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 37.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3149 million. That figure was $3757 million in IQV’s case. eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BCE Inc. (NYSE:BCE) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IQV is 80.7. 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 29.6% in 2021 and still managed to beat the market by another 3.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were somewhat right about betting on IQV as the stock returned 2.2% since the end of September (through January 31st) and outperformed the top 5 hedge fund stocks but not the market. This is a rare phenomenon as top hedge fund stocks usually beat the market over the long-term.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
