Is Columbia Property Trust Inc (CXP) A Good Stock To Buy?

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge funds have been producing disappointing net returns in recent years, however that was partly due to the poor performance of small-cap stocks in general. Well, small-cap stocks finally turned the corner and have been beating the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points over the last 5 months.This means the relevancy of hedge funds’ public filings became inarguable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP) .

Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP) was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. CXP shareholders have witnessed a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money recently. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with CXP holdings at the end of September. 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 Terex Corporation (NYSE:TEX), Clean Harbors Inc (NYSE:CLH), and IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC) to gather more data points.

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.

Keeping this in mind, let’s analyze the key action surrounding Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP).

Hedge fund activity in Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP)

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a decline of 8% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CXP over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, David S. Winter and David J. Millstone’s 40 North Management has the biggest position in Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP), worth close to $32.9 million, accounting for 6% of its total 13F portfolio. On 40 North Management’s heels is D E Shaw, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, holding a $19.4 million position; less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other professional money managers that hold long positions encompass Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies. 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.

Judging by the fact that Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP) has gone through a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital got rid of the largest position of all the hedgies studied by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $1.3 million in stock, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.3 million worth of shares.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP). We will take a look at Terex Corporation (NYSE:TEX), Clean Harbors Inc (NYSE:CLH), IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC), and The Timken Company (NYSE:TKR). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to CXP’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 21 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $187 million. That figure was $84 million in CXP’s case. The Timken Company (NYSE:TKR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Clean Harbors Inc (NYSE:CLH) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP) is even less popular than CLH. 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