Hedge Funds Are Piling Into Simon Property Group, Inc (SPG)

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30th, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG).

Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG) has experienced an increase in hedge fund sentiment of late. Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG) was in 38 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 37. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 37 hedge funds in our database with SPG holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that SPG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

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. Now let’s check out the recent hedge fund action surrounding Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG).

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

At Q3’s end, a total of 38 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 3% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 25 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in SPG a year ago. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Citadel Investment Group was the largest shareholder of Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG), with a stake worth $131.5 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Citadel Investment Group was Candlestick Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $97.5 million. Holocene Advisors, Zimmer Partners, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Capital Growth Management allocated the biggest weight to Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG), around 2.39% of its 13F portfolio. Hill Winds Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.99 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SPG.

Consequently, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Renaissance Technologies,  assembled the biggest position in Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG). Renaissance Technologies had $53.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Heebner’s Capital Growth Management also initiated a $26 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, and Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG). We will take a look at Microchip Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ:MCHP), Vodafone Group Plc (NASDAQ:VOD), Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB), O’Reilly Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:ORLY), Cadence Design Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CDNS), Roku, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROKU), and Schlumberger Limited. (NYSE:SLB). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to SPG’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 42.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1681 million. That figure was $726 million in SPG’s case. Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vodafone Group Plc (NASDAQ:VOD) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SPG is 56.8. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on SPG as the stock returned 17.6% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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