Hedge Funds Are Piling Into Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (VAC)

At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 873 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of June 30th. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC) makes for a good investment right now.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC) shareholders have witnessed an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC) was in 35 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic was previously 32. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with VAC positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that VAC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

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

At Q2’s end, a total of 35 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 46% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 24 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in VAC a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Is VAC A Good Stock To Buy?

Among these funds, Rima Senvest Management held the most valuable stake in Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC), which was worth $154.8 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Citadel Investment Group which amassed $153.2 million worth of shares. Melvin Capital Management, Tremblant Capital, and Millennium 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 Yarra Square Partners allocated the biggest weight to Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC), around 7.41% of its 13F portfolio. Rima Senvest Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 4.51 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VAC.

Now, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Melvin Capital Management, managed by Gabriel Plotkin, assembled the most valuable call position in Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC). Melvin Capital Management had $47.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital also initiated a $3.7 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Jinghua Yan’s TwinBeech Capital, Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, and Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC) but similarly valued. These stocks are Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX), VCA Antech Inc (NASDAQ:WOOF), Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE:WH), First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR), InVitae Corporation (NYSE:NVTA), OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE:OGE), and Sonoco Products Company (NYSE:SON). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to VAC’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
BRX 21 179789 3
WOOF 27 321057 2
WH 24 801135 0
FR 22 282144 2
NVTA 31 2151154 -3
OGE 17 276770 -6
SON 15 139239 -10
Average 22.4 593041 -1.7

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $593 million. That figure was $748 million in VAC’s case. InVitae Corporation (NYSE:NVTA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sonoco Products Company (NYSE:SON) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VAC is 90. 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 21.8% in 2021 through October 11th and still beat the market by 4.4 percentage points. Unfortunately VAC wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VAC were disappointed as the stock returned -0.6% since the end of the second quarter (through 10/11) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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