Alcoa Inc (AA): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

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Concerns over a shift in Fed’s easy monetary policy have hit several hedge funds hard during the third quarter. A number of sectors are in correction territory. More importantly, Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) underperformed the larger S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 14 percentage points between June 25, 2015 and October 30, 2015. Hedge funds and institutional investors tracked by Insider Monkey usually invest a disproportionate amount of their portfolios in smaller cap stocks. We have been receiving indications that hedge funds were paring back their overall exposure and this is one of the factors behind the recent movements in major indices. In this article, we will take a closer look at hedge fund sentiment towards Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA).

Alcoa Inc was in 46 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. AA has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. There were 45 hedge funds in our database with AA holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare AA to other stocks, including Cenovus Energy Inc (USA) (NYSE:CVE), Citizens Financial Group Inc (NYSE:CFG), and Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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Now, we’re going to take a gander at the new action encompassing Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA).

What have hedge funds been doing with Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 46 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, inching up by 2% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group has the most valuable position in Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA), worth close to $504.9 million, accounting for 8.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick of First Pacific Advisors LLC, with a $460.5 million position; 4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish encompass William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Mike Masters’s Masters Capital Management.

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