Is Brandywine Realty Trust (BDN) A Good Stock To Buy?

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 Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN).

Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund interest of late. BDN was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with BDN holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare BDN to other stocks including MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG), Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBGI), and Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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How have hedgies been trading Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, down by 8% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards BDN over the last 5 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Millennium Management, one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world, has the number one position in Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN), worth close to $16.1 million. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Renaissance Technologies, which holds a $15.4 million position. Other professional money managers with similar optimism encompass D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors. We should note that none of these hedge funds are 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.

We already know that not all hedge funds are bullish on the stock and some hedge funds actually said goodbye to their positions entirely. It’s worth mentioning that Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management said goodbye to the largest position of the 700 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling about $1.7 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also sold off its call options, about $0.2 million worth.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN). We will take a look at MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG), Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBGI), Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY), and Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to BDN’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $366 million. That figure was $43 million in BDN’s case. MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY) is the least popular one with only 21 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN) is even less popular than JOY. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: None