Did Hedge Funds Get Northern Trust Corporation (NTRS) Right?

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 6 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS) based on that data and determine whether they were really smart about the stock.

Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS) has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest lately. Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS) was in 34 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 37. Our calculations also showed that NTRS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

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 view the recent hedge fund action surrounding Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS).

Mario Gabelli of GAMCO Investors

Do Hedge Funds Think NTRS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At Q3’s end, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 6% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in NTRS over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Ariel Investments was the largest shareholder of Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS), with a stake worth $206.6 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Ariel Investments was Balyasny Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $61.3 million. Millennium Management, Citadel Investment Group, and GAMCO Investors were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Global Frontier Investments allocated the biggest weight to Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS), around 2.36% of its 13F portfolio. Ariel Investments is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 1.89 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NTRS.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have jumped into Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS) headfirst. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, created the most outsized position in Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS). Citadel Investment Group had $44.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Allon Hellmann’s Full18 Capital also made a $4.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new NTRS investors: Richard SchimeláandáLawrence Sapanski’s Cinctive Capital Management, Ran Pang’s Quantamental Technologies, and Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS) but similarly valued. We will take a look at XP Inc. (NASDAQ:XP), Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALNY), Dover Corporation (NYSE:DOV), Zillow Group Inc (NASDAQ:Z), Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPWR), and Xylem Inc (NYSE:XYL). All of these stocks’ market caps match NTRS’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
XP 28 674196 3
VMC 43 1923351 0
ALNY 40 1030395 7
DOV 32 351286 3
Z 67 4251493 -9
MPWR 28 799034 -6
XYL 22 821321 -1
Average 37.1 1407297 -0.4

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 37.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1407 million. That figure was $535 million in NTRS’s case. Zillow Group Inc (NASDAQ:Z) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Xylem Inc (NYSE:XYL) is the least popular one with only 22 bullish hedge fund positions. Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for NTRS is 47.9. 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. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on NTRS as the stock returned 8.8% since the end of the third quarter (through 1/31) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.