Many prominent investors, including Warren Buffett, David Tepper and Stan Druckenmiller, have been cautious regarding the current bull market and missed out as the stock market reached another high in recent weeks. On the other hand, technology hedge funds weren’t timid and registered double digit market beating gains. Financials, energy and industrial stocks initially suffered the most but many of these stocks delivered strong returns since November and hedge funds actually increased their positions in these stocks. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment towards WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC) changed recently.
WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC) investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC) was in 52 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 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 WSC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can’t expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. Our research was 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). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds’ moves today.
Ricky Sandler of Eminence Capital
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. Keeping this in mind let’s take a look at the latest hedge fund action surrounding WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC).
Do Hedge Funds Think WSC Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At second quarter’s end, a total of 52 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 11% from the first quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 31 hedge funds with a bullish position in WSC 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.
More specifically, Eminence Capital was the largest shareholder of WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC), with a stake worth $244.5 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Eminence Capital was Point State Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $116.7 million. Permian Investment Partners, Broad Bay Capital, and Rubric Capital Management 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 Clearfield Capital allocated the biggest weight to WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC), around 13.34% of its 13F portfolio. Yarra Square Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 12.64 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to WSC.
Now, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Waterfront Capital Partners, managed by Eduardo Abush, created the most valuable position in WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC). Waterfront Capital Partners had $17 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Chris Rokos’s Rokos Capital Management also initiated a $13.9 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new WSC investors: Jeffrey Talpins’s Element Capital Management, Sahm Adrangi’s Kerrisdale Capital, and Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC). We will take a look at Affiliated Managers Group, Inc. (NYSE:AMG), DCP Midstream LP (NYSE:DCP), Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL), 360 DigiTech, Inc. (NASDAQ:QFIN), Reynolds Consumer Products Inc. (NASDAQ:REYN), MultiPlan Corporation (NYSE:MPLN), and Medpace Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MEDP). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to WSC’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMG | 30 | 784733 | 4 |
| DCP | 3 | 31363 | -1 |
| FL | 31 | 416162 | 3 |
| QFIN | 14 | 82360 | -5 |
| REYN | 14 | 108385 | -5 |
| MPLN | 16 | 480813 | -14 |
| MEDP | 24 | 337127 | 3 |
| Average | 18.9 | 320135 | -2.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 18.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $320 million. That figure was $1400 million in WSC’s case. Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand DCP Midstream LP (NYSE:DCP) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:WSC) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for WSC is 90. 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 returned 29.6% in 2021 through November 5th but still managed to beat the market by 3.1 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on WSC as the stock returned 28.4% since the end of June (through 11/5) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
