Do Hedge Funds Love IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (IQV)?

In this article we will check out the progression of hedge fund sentiment towards IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) 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.

IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund sentiment lately. IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) was in 66 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 69. Our calculations also showed that IQV 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 look at the latest hedge fund action encompassing IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV).

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

At the end of September, a total of 66 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -4% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards IQV over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Farallon Capital has the most valuable position in IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV), worth close to $647.7 million, amounting to 3.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Arrowstreet Capital, led by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, holding a $369.6 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish contain Ian Simm’s Impax Asset Management, Dan Loeb’s Third Point and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position RIT Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV), around 14.86% of its 13F portfolio. Cowbird Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 8.73 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IQV.

Due to the fact that IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) has faced falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there was a specific group of funds who sold off their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Robert Pitts’s Steadfast Capital Management dropped the largest stake of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, worth close to $281 million in stock, and Larry Robbins’s Glenview Capital was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $37.6 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Synopsys, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNPS), BCE Inc. (NYSE:BCE), eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR), The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ:KHC), TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL), and Carrier Global Corporation (NYSE:CARR). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to IQV’s market valuation.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 37.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3149 million. That figure was $3757 million in IQV’s case. eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BCE Inc. (NYSE:BCE) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks IQVIA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:IQV) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IQV is 80.7. 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. 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 returned 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th but still managed to beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on IQV as the stock returned 8.2% since the end of September (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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