Do Hedge Funds Love Hillman Solutions Corp. (HLMN) ?

In this article we will check out the progression of hedge fund sentiment towards Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) and determine whether it is a good investment right now. We at Insider Monkey like to examine what billionaires and hedge funds think of a company before spending days of research on it. Given their 2 and 20 payment structure, hedge funds have more incentives and resources than the average investor. The funds have access to expert networks and get tips from industry insiders. They also employ numerous Ivy League graduates and MBAs. Like everyone else, hedge funds perform miserably at times, but their consensus picks have historically outperformed the market after risk adjustments.

Is Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) an attractive stock to buy now? Prominent investors were getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets increased by 25 lately. Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that HLMN 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. Keeping this in mind let’s take a gander at the new hedge fund action encompassing Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN).

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

At Q3’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 25 from the second quarter of 2021. On the other hand, there were a total of 0 hedge funds with a bullish position in HLMN a year ago. So, let’s review 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, Ian Cumming and Joseph Steinberg’s Leucadia National has the number one position in Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) , worth close to $85.6 million, amounting to 36.9% of its total 13F portfolio. On Leucadia National’s heels is Brahman Capital, led by Mitch Kuflik and Rob Sobel, holding a $78.9 million position; the fund has 5.8% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish consist of Robert Pohly’s Samlyn Capital, Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group and Angela Aldrich’s Bayberry Capital Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Leucadia National allocated the biggest weight to Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) , around 36.86% of its 13F portfolio. Bayberry Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 10.77 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HLMN.

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Leucadia National, managed by Ian Cumming and Joseph Steinberg, initiated the biggest position in Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) . Leucadia National had $85.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mitch Kuflik and Rob Sobel’s Brahman Capital also initiated a $78.9 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new HLMN positions are Robert Pohly’s Samlyn Capital, Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group, and Angela Aldrich’s Bayberry Capital Partners.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Telephone & Data Systems, Inc. (NYSE:TDS), Astra Space Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTR), D-MARKET Elektronik Hizmetler ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi (NASDAQ:HEPS), Criteo SA (NASDAQ:CRTO), Bally’s Corporation (NYSE:BALY), ATRenew Inc. (NYSE:RERE), and Kenon Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:KEN). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to HLMN’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $125 million. That figure was $481 million in HLMN’s case. Bally’s Corporation (NYSE:BALY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Kenon Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:KEN) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:HLMN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for HLMN is 80.8. 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 positive signal but 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 31.1% in 2021 through December 9th and beat the market again by 5.1 percentage points. Unfortunately HLMN wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on HLMN were disappointed as the stock returned -13.7% since the end of September (through 12/9) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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