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 second 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 Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) based on that data.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) has experienced a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) was in 48 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 63. Our calculations also showed that LVS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 79 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We have been able to outperform the passive index funds by tracking the moves of corporate insiders and hedge funds, and we believe small investors can benefit a lot from reading hedge fund investor letters and 13F filings.
David E. Shaw of D.E. Shaw
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, billionaire John Paulson is loading up on the miners, so we are checking out stock pitches like this mining 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. Now let’s analyze the key hedge fund action regarding Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS).
Do Hedge Funds Think LVS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 48 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -23% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in LVS over the last 24 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) was held by D E Shaw, which reported holding $308.2 million worth of stock at the end of June. It was followed by Melvin Capital Management with a $284.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Melvin Capital Management, Long Pond Capital, and Long Pond Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Long Pond Capital allocated the biggest weight to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), around 6.45% of its 13F portfolio. Long Pond Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 6.37 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LVS.
Because Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) has witnessed a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there exists a select few hedge funds that elected to cut their positions entirely by the end of the second quarter. Interestingly, Daniel Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners dumped the biggest stake of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, worth about $187.9 million in stock. Andrew Immerman and Jeremy Schiffman’s fund, Palestra Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $156.5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 14 funds by the end of the second quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS). These stocks are PPG Industries, Inc. (NYSE:PPG), Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS), Sempra (NYSE:SRE), CRH PLC (NYSE:CRH), SYSCO Corporation (NYSE:SYY), Pioneer Natural Resources Company (NYSE:PXD), and Parker-Hannifin Corporation (NYSE:PH). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to LVS’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| PPG | 26 | 233709 | 1 |
| CTAS | 21 | 539216 | -11 |
| SRE | 28 | 343994 | 1 |
| CRH | 9 | 90599 | 0 |
| SYY | 40 | 2600524 | -2 |
| PXD | 45 | 876323 | 8 |
| PH | 42 | 1446066 | -1 |
| Average | 30.1 | 875776 | -0.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 30.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $876 million. That figure was $1759 million in LVS’s case. Pioneer Natural Resources Company (NYSE:PXD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CRH PLC (NYSE:CRH) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LVS is 63.9. 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 through November 5th and still beat the market by 3.1 percentage points. Unfortunately LVS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on LVS were disappointed as the stock returned -19.1% since the end of the second quarter (through 11/5) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Las Vegas Sands Corp (NYSE:LVS)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
