The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at 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. Hedge funds’ consensus stock picks performed spectacularly over the last 3 years, but 2022 hasn’t been kind to hedge funds. In this article we look at how hedge funds traded Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY) and determine whether the smart money was really smart about this stock.
Is Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY) a cheap stock to buy now? Hedge funds were becoming hopeful. The number of bullish hedge fund positions moved up by 3 in recent months. Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY) was in 57 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 57. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that ALLY isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). There were 54 hedge funds in our database with ALLY positions at the end of the second quarter.
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. Keeping this in mind let’s take a look at the recent hedge fund action regarding Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY).
Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management
Do Hedge Funds Think ALLY Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 57 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 6% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ALLY over the last 25 quarters. 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, Arrowstreet Capital was the largest shareholder of Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY), with a stake worth $442.3 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Arrowstreet Capital was Oaktree Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $351 million. Holocene Advisors, D E Shaw, and Punch Card Capital 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 Punch Card Capital allocated the biggest weight to Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY), around 43.55% of its 13F portfolio. Glendon Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 6.83 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ALLY.
Consequently, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, initiated the biggest position in Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY). Balyasny Asset Management had $38.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Usman Waheed’s Strycker View Capital also initiated a $6.7 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ALLY positions are Ravi Chopra’s Azora Capital, Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, and Allon Hellmann’s Full18 Capital.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY). These stocks are Duke Realty Corporation (NYSE:DRE), KB Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:KB), Healthpeak Properties, Inc. (NYSE:PEAK), Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER), Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ:LYFT), Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO), and NICE Ltd (NASDAQ:NICE). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to ALLY’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| DRE | 13 | 67287 | -2 |
| KB | 8 | 21128 | 0 |
| PEAK | 20 | 202911 | -2 |
| TER | 42 | 1369839 | -2 |
| LYFT | 33 | 900001 | -10 |
| TTWO | 53 | 1196708 | -2 |
| NICE | 27 | 1119470 | 5 |
| Average | 28 | 696763 | -1.9 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 28 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $697 million. That figure was $2517 million in ALLY’s case. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand KB Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:KB) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ALLY is 88. 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. Unfortunately, ALLY wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on ALLY were disappointed as the stock returned -5.4% since the end of the third quarter (through 1/31) 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 all of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE:ALLY)
Follow Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE:ALLY)
Suggested Articles:
- John Rogers’ Top 10 Stock Picks
- 10 Best Gold Stocks To Buy Now
- Top 10 Energy Dividend Stocks To Invest In
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
