In this article we will check out the progression of hedge fund sentiment towards Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) and determine whether it is a good investment right now. We at Insider Monkey like to examine what billionaires and hedge funds think of a company before spending days of research on it. Given their 2 and 20 payment structure, hedge funds have more incentives and resources than the average investor. The funds have access to expert networks and get tips from industry insiders. They also employ numerous Ivy League graduates and MBAs. Like everyone else, hedge funds perform miserably at times, but their consensus picks have historically outperformed the market after risk adjustments.
Is Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) a buy, sell, or hold? The smart money was turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets improved by 16 in recent months. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) was in 63 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic was previously 47. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that LVS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are tons of indicators stock market investors use to analyze publicly traded companies. A duo of the best indicators are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite fund managers can outclass the S&P 500 by a significant margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 197% since March 2017 (through March 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by 124 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .
Daniel Sundheim of D1 Capital Partners
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Do Hedge Funds Think LVS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 63 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 34% from the third quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards LVS over the last 22 quarters. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) was held by Melvin Capital Management, which reported holding $629.4 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by D1 Capital Partners with a $318.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Palestra Capital Management, Point72 Asset Management, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Cumberland Associates / Springowl Associates allocated the biggest weight to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), around 18.08% of its 13F portfolio. 1060 Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 9.42 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LVS.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Palestra Capital Management, managed by Andrew Immerman and Jeremy Schiffman, assembled the largest position in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS). Palestra Capital Management had $193.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management also initiated a $123.7 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new LVS investors: Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management, Robert Pitts’s Steadfast Capital Management, and Amit Nitin Doshi’s Harbor Spring Capital.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU), DoorDash, Inc. (NYSE:DASH), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF), Roper Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ROP), Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (NASDAQ:KDP), The Blackstone Group Inc. (NYSE:BX), and NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ:NXPI). This group of stocks’ market values resemble LVS’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LULU | 50 | 929013 | 0 |
| DASH | 38 | 3952490 | 38 |
| COF | 56 | 3028457 | 14 |
| ROP | 40 | 1348849 | -10 |
| KDP | 29 | 1076705 | -12 |
| BX | 54 | 1450344 | 5 |
| NXPI | 66 | 2259680 | -2 |
| Average | 47.6 | 2006505 | 4.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 47.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2007 million. That figure was $3066 million in LVS’s case. NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ:NXPI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (NASDAQ:KDP) is the least popular one with only 29 bullish hedge fund positions. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LVS is 85.9. 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. 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 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 90.7% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 35 percentage points. These stocks gained 13.6% in 2021 through April 30th and beat the market again by 1.6 percentage points. Unfortunately LVS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on LVS were disappointed as the stock returned 2.8% since the end of December (through 4/30) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
