How Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC) Stock Stacks Up Against Its Peers

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC).

Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC) was in 31 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. MMC investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with MMC positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), T MOBILE US INC (NYSE:TMUS), and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:MFG) to gather more data points.

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What have hedge funds been doing with Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 31 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a gain of 29% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital has the largest position in Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC), worth close to $176 million, accounting for 1.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Charles de Vaulx of International Value Advisers, with a $54.6 million position; 1.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions encompass Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital.

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have jumped into Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC) headfirst. Renaissance Technologies created the most valuable position in Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC) with $50.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group also made a $11.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new MMC positions are Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management, and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC) but similarly valued. These stocks are Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), T MOBILE US INC (NYSE:TMUS), Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:MFG), and The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble MMC’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 48 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3.14 billion. That figure was $541 million in MMC’s case. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:MFG) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard YHOO might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None