Hedge Funds Are Crazy About American Campus Communities, Inc. (ACC)

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. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 866 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st. In this article we look at what those investors think of American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC).

Is American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC) a sound investment today? Hedge funds were getting more optimistic. The number of long hedge fund positions inched up by 11 lately. American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 26. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that ACC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can’t expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds’ moves today.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, economists warn of inflation flare up. So, we are checking out this backdoor gold play that has hit peak gains of 718% in a little over a year. We go through lists like the 10 best battery 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. With all of this in mind we’re going to view the new hedge fund action surrounding American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC).

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

At first quarter’s end, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 73% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ACC over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Land & Buildings Investment Management held the most valuable stake in American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC), which was worth $56.6 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Governors Lane which amassed $50.9 million worth of shares. MSDC Management, Masterton Capital Management, and Renaissance Technologies 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 Masterton Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC), around 12.49% of its 13F portfolio. Land & Buildings Investment Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 12.01 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ACC.

Now, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Renaissance Technologies, established the largest position in American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC). Renaissance Technologies had $12.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Crandall Gilman’s Hill Winds Capital also initiated a $8.3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ACC positions are Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC). We will take a look at Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI), Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP), SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE:SNX), Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT), Duck Creek Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCT), First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR), and Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to ACC’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 26 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $641 million. That figure was $231 million in ACC’s case. Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE:SNX) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ACC is 68.9. 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 gained 24% in 2021 through July 9th and beat the market by 6.7 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on ACC, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 15.3% since the end of Q1 (through July 9th) and outperformed the market.

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