The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the first quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of March 31st. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards General Electric Company (NYSE:GE).
General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) was in 68 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 74. Our calculations also showed that GE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Richard S. Pzena of Pzena Investment Management
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. 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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind let’s take a peek at the recent hedge fund action surrounding General Electric Company (NYSE:GE).
Do Hedge Funds Think GE Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At first quarter’s end, a total of 68 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -1% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 58 hedge funds with a bullish position in GE 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.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Eagle Capital Management, managed by Boykin Curry, holds the most valuable position in General Electric Company (NYSE:GE). Eagle Capital Management has a $1.4842 billion position in the stock, comprising 4.6% of its 13F portfolio. On Eagle Capital Management’s heels is Pzena Investment Management, managed by Richard S. Pzena, which holds a $1.116 billion position; the fund has 4.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that hold long positions consist of Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global, Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Platinum Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), around 7.19% of its 13F portfolio. Antipodes Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 6.63 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GE.
Because General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there were a few hedgies who sold off their entire stakes in the first quarter. Intriguingly, Patrick Degorce’s Theleme Partners cut the biggest stake of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $163.2 million in stock. Steve Cohen’s fund, Point72 Asset Management, also dropped its stock, about $13.9 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds in the first quarter.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), PetroChina Company Limited (NYSE:PTR), Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), 3M Company (NYSE:MMM), and American Tower Corporation (NYSE:AMT). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to GE’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BLK | 42 | 1524856 | -11 |
| AXP | 53 | 24475341 | -7 |
| PTR | 8 | 73088 | 3 |
| ABNB | 52 | 2417824 | -16 |
| GS | 77 | 5057213 | 1 |
| MMM | 41 | 1519815 | -3 |
| AMT | 58 | 4593727 | -3 |
| Average | 47.3 | 5665981 | -5.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 47.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5666 million. That figure was $6166 million in GE’s case. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand PetroChina Company Limited (NYSE:PTR) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GE is 75. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 25.8% in 2021 through August 6th and beat the market again by 6.7 percentage points. Unfortunately GE wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on GE were disappointed as the stock returned -0.4% since the end of March (through 8/6) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow General Electric Co (NYSE:GE)
Follow General Electric Co (NYSE:GE)
Suggested Articles:
- 13 Biggest Microfinance Companies In USA
- 12 Most Influencial Chinese Entrepreneurs
- 15 Best Security Stocks to Buy Now
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
