With the second-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the third quarter of 2021. One of these stocks was Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN).
Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN) has experienced an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN) was in 20 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 29. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with KN holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that KN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
Today there are dozens of methods shareholders employ to evaluate stocks. A duo of the most underrated methods are hedge fund and insider trading activity. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite money managers can outpace the broader indices by a healthy amount (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 (through August 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 79 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website.
Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. 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. 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a peek at the latest hedge fund action regarding Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN).
Do Hedge Funds Think KN Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 11% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in KN over the last 24 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN) was held by Ariel Investments, which reported holding $95 million worth of stock at the end of June. It was followed by Fisher Asset Management with a $50.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included D E Shaw, Royce & Associates, and Arrowstreet Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Ariel Investments allocated the biggest weight to Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN), around 0.89% of its 13F portfolio. Woodline Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.25 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to KN.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Gotham Asset Management, managed by Joel Greenblatt, initiated the biggest position in Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN). Gotham Asset Management had $0.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock is Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN). These stocks are Betterware de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (NASDAQ:BWMX), C4 Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCCC), OSI Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSIS), Delek Logistics Partners LP (NYSE:DKL), Alamo Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALG), Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA (NYSE:GOL), and AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to KN’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BWMX | 5 | 24187 | -1 |
| CCCC | 23 | 341981 | 3 |
| OSIS | 21 | 97299 | 1 |
| DKL | 3 | 5088 | 2 |
| ALG | 10 | 220181 | -2 |
| GOL | 10 | 20694 | 0 |
| AMK | 9 | 45274 | 0 |
| Average | 11.6 | 107815 | 0.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $108 million. That figure was $273 million in KN’s case. C4 Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCCC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Delek Logistics Partners LP (NYSE:DKL) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for KN is 70.2. 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 24% in 2021 through October 22nd and beat the market again by 1.6 percentage points. Unfortunately KN wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on KN were disappointed as the stock returned 0.2% since the end of June (through 10/22) 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.
Follow Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN)
Follow Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN)
Suggested Articles:
- 15 Most Valuable Australian Companies
- Michael Burry’s Top Stock Picks
- 12 Best Mining Stocks to Buy Now
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
