The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 867 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. Hedge funds’ consensus stock picks performed spectacularly over the last 3 years, but 2022 hasn’t been kind to hedge funds. In this article we look at how hedge funds traded The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) and determine whether the smart money was really smart about this stock.
Is The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) a buy here? The best stock pickers were turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets inched up by 3 in recent months. The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) was in 47 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 53. Our calculations also showed that PGR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). There were 44 hedge funds in our database with PGR positions at the end of the second quarter.
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. With all of this in mind we’re going to check out the key hedge fund action surrounding The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR).
Glenn Greenberg of Brave Warrior Capital
Do Hedge Funds Think PGR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 47 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 7% from the second quarter of 2021. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards PGR over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management has the largest position in The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR), worth close to $408.1 million, corresponding to 2.8% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Brave Warrior Capital, led by Glenn Greenberg, holding a $206.3 million position; 7.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other members of the smart money with similar optimism contain Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Gavin M. Abrams’s Abrams Bison Investments and Jonathan Bloomberg’s BloombergSen. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Abrams Bison Investments allocated the biggest weight to The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR), around 7.23% of its 13F portfolio. Brave Warrior Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 7.23 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PGR.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Orbis Investment Management, managed by William B. Gray, created the largest position in The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR). Orbis Investment Management had $408.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Thomas Bancroft’s Makaira Partners also initiated a $6.8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Renaissance Technologies, and Ran Pang’s Quantamental Technologies.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR). These stocks are Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET), IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDXX), Align Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALGN), Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU), Public Storage (NYSE:PSA), NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ:NXPI), and Ferrari N.V. (NYSE:RACE). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble PGR’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| MET | 39 | 1145473 | -2 |
| IDXX | 43 | 3698749 | 4 |
| ALGN | 49 | 2262912 | -8 |
| LULU | 41 | 709432 | -5 |
| PSA | 35 | 1260285 | 8 |
| NXPI | 51 | 1080819 | -1 |
| RACE | 27 | 1177569 | 0 |
| Average | 40.7 | 1619320 | -0.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 40.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1619 million. That figure was $1575 million in PGR’s case. NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ:NXPI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ferrari N.V. (NYSE:RACE) is the least popular one with only 27 bullish hedge fund positions. The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PGR is 76.3. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 29.6% in 2021 and still beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on PGR as the stock returned 22.2% since the end of Q3 (through 1/31) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Follow Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR)
Follow Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR)
Suggested Articles:
- 20 Most Deadliest and Dangerous Snakes In the World
- 10 Best Asian Stocks to Buy Now
- 15 Biggest Cosmetic Companies In The World
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
