FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (FLT): Hedge Funds Are Nibbling

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. What do these smart investors think about FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT)?

FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT) investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund interest lately. Our calculations also showed that FLT isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

According to most stock holders, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, outdated investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, Our experts choose to focus on the moguls of this club, approximately 850 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors administer most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by tracking their highest performing investments, Insider Monkey has unsheathed numerous investment strategies that have historically defeated the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we are still not out of the woods in terms of the coronavirus pandemic. So, we checked out this successful trader’s “corona catalyst plays“. Also, Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we checked out this European marijuana stock pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Now let’s view the latest hedge fund action encompassing FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT).

How are hedge funds trading FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 51 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 16% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 34 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in FLT 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.

More specifically, Melvin Capital Management was the largest shareholder of FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT), with a stake worth $278.1 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Melvin Capital Management was Tiger Global Management LLC, which amassed a stake valued at $241.6 million. Maverick Capital, Steadfast Capital Management, and Palestra Capital 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 Berylson Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT), around 13.67% of its 13F portfolio. Banbury Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 10.9 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FLT.

Now, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, created the biggest position in FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT). Citadel Investment Group had $46.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jeffrey Tannenbaum’s Fir Tree also initiated a $45 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new FLT investors: John Smith Clark’s Southpoint Capital Advisors, Jonathan Auerbach’s Hound Partners, and Baker Burleson and Stormy Scott’s Banbury Partners.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY), Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS), Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD), and Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE:SNN). All of these stocks’ market caps match FLT’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 28 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1063 million. That figure was $1655 million in FLT’s case. Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE:SNN) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks returned 7.9% in 2020 through May 22nd but still managed to beat the market by 15.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on FLT as the stock returned 28.3% so far in Q2 (through May 22nd) 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.

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