Copa Holdings, S.A. (CPA): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

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It seems that the masses and most of the financial media hate hedge funds and what they do, but why is this hatred of hedge funds so prominent? At the end of the day, these asset management firms do not gamble the hard-earned money of the people who are on the edge of poverty. Truth be told, most hedge fund managers and other smaller players within this industry are very smart and skilled investors. Of course, they may also make wrong bets in some instances, but no one knows what the future holds and how market participants will react to the bountiful news that floods in each day. The S&P 500 Index gained 7.6% in the 12 month-period that ended November 21, while less than 49% of its stocks beat the benchmark. In contrast, the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks among the top hedge fund investors tracked by the Insider Monkey team returned 18% over the same period, which provides evidence that these money managers do have great stock picking abilities. That’s why we believe it isn’t a waste of time to check out hedge fund sentiment before you invest in a stock like Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA).

Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA) has seen an increase in hedge fund sentiment recently. More specifically, the number of funds followed by Insider Monkey bullish on the stock surged to 16 at the end of September, from just seven at the end of June. At the end of this article we will also compare CPA to other stocks including U.S. Silica Holdings Inc (NYSE:SLCA), Cousins Properties Inc (NYSE:CUZ), and Boston Beer Co Inc (NYSE:SAM) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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With all of this in mind, let’s view the fresh action encompassing Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA).

What does the smart money think about Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 16 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in Copa Holdings, which represents a jump of 129% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 10 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in CPA heading into this year. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

HedgeFundSentimentChart

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management holds the number one position in Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA) which was valued at $163.5 million, comprising 1.1% of its 13F portfolio at the end of September. The second most bullish fund is Richard Driehaus’ Driehaus Capital holding a $26.1 million position. Other professional money managers with similar optimism consist of Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. We should note that Orbis Investment Management is among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

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