Is it smart to be bullish on Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT)?
In the eyes of many of your peers, hedge funds are perceived as bloated, outdated investment tools of an era lost to time. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds in operation in present day, Insider Monkey looks at the upper echelon of this club, close to 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group oversees the majority of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by watching their highest quality equity investments, we’ve found a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have topped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).
Equally as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the stock market universe. There are lots of reasons for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if shareholders understand what to do (learn more here).
Now that that’s out of the way, it’s important to analyze the newest info for Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT).
How are hedge funds trading Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT)?
At the end of the second quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 7% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.
When using filings from the firms we track, AEW Capital Management had the biggest position in Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT), worth close to $135.9 million, accounting for 3.5% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw, with a $64.4 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedgies with similar optimism include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management.
As industrywide interest increased, particular hedge funds have jumped into Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT) headfirst. AEW Capital Management created the largest position in Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT). AEW Capital Management had 135.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $64.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new FRT investors: Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management.
Insider trading activity in Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT)
Insider buying made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also examine the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT). These stocks are Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM), DDR Corp (NYSE:DDR), Macerich Co (NYSE:MAC), Realty Income Corp (NYSE:O), and SL Green Realty Corp (NYSE:SLG). This group of stocks belong to the reit – retail industry and their market caps match FRT’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM) | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| DDR Corp (NYSE:DDR) | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Macerich Co (NYSE:MAC) | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Realty Income Corp (NYSE:O) | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| SL Green Realty Corp (NYSE:SLG) | 15 | 0 | 0 |
Using the results shown by the previously mentioned tactics, regular investors must always track hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT) applies perfectly to this mantra.
