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 867 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, 2021. What do these smart investors think about Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A)?
Is Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) a bargain? Prominent investors were getting more bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets moved up by 7 recently. Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) was in 46 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 52. Our calculations also showed that A isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital
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 key hedge fund action encompassing Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A).
Do Hedge Funds Think A Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 46 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 18% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 39 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in A a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) was held by Impax Asset Management, which reported holding $629.5 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Arrowstreet Capital with a $626.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Cantillon Capital Management, D E Shaw, and Two Sigma Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Claar Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A), around 4.73% of its 13F portfolio. Cantillon Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 3.9 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to A.
Consequently, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Two Sigma Advisors, managed by John Overdeck and David Siegel, created the biggest position in Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A). Two Sigma Advisors had $228.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Renaissance Technologies also made a $29.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new A positions are Ryan Caldwell’s Chiron Investment Management, Jinghua Yan’s TwinBeech Capital, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A). These stocks are Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD), American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG), Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC), TC Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP), Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX), Roper Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ROP), and Monster Beverage Corp (NASDAQ:MNST). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to A’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPD | 25 | 233255 | -3 |
| AIG | 30 | 1904264 | -9 |
| EXC | 36 | 1108781 | 1 |
| TRP | 15 | 84084 | -7 |
| VRTX | 55 | 2713283 | -5 |
| ROP | 45 | 1667275 | 4 |
| MNST | 42 | 2134498 | -4 |
| Average | 35.4 | 1406491 | -3.3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 35.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1406 million. That figure was $3136 million in A’s case. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TC Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for A is 75.3. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately A wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on A were disappointed as the stock returned -4.1% since the end of September (through 11/30) 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 Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A)
Follow Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
