Hedge Funds Are Piling Into Nutrien Ltd. (NTR)

Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of September. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 900 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.

Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) has experienced an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) was in 33 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 35. Our calculations also showed that NTR 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, 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. Now let’s go over the recent hedge fund action encompassing Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR).

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

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 32% from the fourth quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 22 hedge funds with a bullish position in NTR a year ago. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) was held by Arrowstreet Capital, which reported holding $458.6 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Adage Capital Management with a $107.8 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Galibier Capital Management, Balyasny Asset Management, and Moerus Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Moerus Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR), around 13.83% of its 13F portfolio. Galibier Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 9.79 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NTR.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. GLG Partners, managed by Noam Gottesman, created the largest position in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR). GLG Partners had $20.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jeff Ubben’s Inclusive Capital also initiated a $12.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, Michel Massoud’s Melqart Asset Management, and Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider’s SG Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) but similarly valued. These stocks are Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX), Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (NYSE:PEG), Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd (NYSE:CHT), SBA Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:SBAC), Skyworks Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:SWKS), and Fortinet Inc (NASDAQ:FTNT). This group of stocks’ market values resemble NTR’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1320 million. That figure was $895 million in NTR’s case. Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd (NYSE:CHT) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for NTR is 66.1. 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 22.8% in 2021 through July 2nd and still beat the market by 6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on NTR, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 13.8% since Q1 (through July 2nd) and outperformed the market as well.

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