Before putting in our own effort and resources into finding a good investment, we can quickly utilize hedge fund expertise to give us a quick glimpse of whether that stock could make for a good addition to our portfolios. The odds are not exactly stacked in investors’ favor when it comes to beating the market, as evidenced by the fact that less than 49% of the stocks in the S&P 500 did so during the 12-month period ending October 30. However, 63% of hedge funds’ top 30 stock picks from the index did beat the market, and returned nearly twice as much on average as the index. Thus, we can see that the tireless research and efforts of hedge funds to identify winning stocks can work to our advantage when we know how to use the data. While not all of their picks will be winners, our odds are much better following their best stock picks than trying to go it alone.
Is Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU) a bargain? Prominent investors are becoming less confident. The number of bullish hedge fund positions decreased by 2 in recent months. 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 General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS), ACE Limited (NYSE:ACE), and Luxottica Group SpA (ADR) (NYSE:LUX) to gather more data points.
Follow Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU)
Follow Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU)
With all of this in mind, we’re going to analyze the new action encompassing Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU).
What does the smart money think about Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU)?
Heading into Q4, a total of 37 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -5% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital has the biggest position in Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU), worth close to $236.2 million, accounting for 1.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which holds an $148.1 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other professional money managers that are bullish encompass Martin D. Sass’ MD Sass, and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management.
