Do Hedge Funds Love Airbnb, Inc. (ABNB)?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended March 31st, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB).

Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB) was in 52 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 68. ABNB has seen a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 68 hedge funds in our database with ABNB holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that ABNB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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Paul Reeder PAR Capital Management

Paul Reeder of PAR Capital Management

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, advertising technology one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this under-the-radar adtech stock that can deliver 10x gains. We go through lists like the 10 best hydrogen fuel cell 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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Now we’re going to take a peek at the key hedge fund action encompassing Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB).

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

At Q1’s end, a total of 52 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -24% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 0 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ABNB a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Is ABNB A Good Stock To Buy?

More specifically, Glade Brook Capital Partners was the largest shareholder of Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB), with a stake worth $558.9 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Glade Brook Capital Partners was Silver Lake Partners, which amassed a stake valued at $481 million. SCGE Management, Citadel Investment Group, and Jericho Capital Asset Management 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 Glade Brook Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB), around 100% of its 13F portfolio. Emerson Point Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 5.26 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ABNB.

Due to the fact that Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there was a specific group of money managers who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. At the top of the heap, John Khoury’s Long Pond Capital said goodbye to the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $44 million in stock. Gabriel Plotkin’s fund, Melvin Capital Management, also dumped its stock, about $44 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 16 funds last quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB). These stocks are Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), 3M Company (NYSE:MMM), American Tower Corporation (NYSE:AMT), The Estee Lauder Companies Inc (NYSE:EL), Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU), Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT), and Square, Inc. (NYSE:SQ). This group of stocks’ market caps match ABNB’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
GS 77 5057213 1
MMM 41 1519815 -3
AMT 58 4593727 -3
EL 59 4103128 8
INTU 68 4707761 0
LMT 50 2295448 -3
SQ 92 9202246 3
Average 63.6 4497048 0.4

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 63.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $4497 million. That figure was $2418 million in ABNB’s case. Square, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) is the least popular one with only 41 bullish hedge fund positions. Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ABNB is 22.7. 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. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and surpassed the market again by 3.3 percentage points. Unfortunately ABNB wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); ABNB investors were disappointed as the stock returned -21% since the end of March (through 6/11) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.

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