Hedge Funds Are Selling Match Group, Inc. (MTCH)

With the third-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the fourth quarter of 2021. One of these stocks was Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH).

Is Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH) the right pick for your portfolio? The smart money was taking a bearish view. The number of bullish hedge fund positions were trimmed by 7 recently. Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH) was in 56 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 72. Our calculations also showed that MTCH 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. Keeping this in mind let’s analyze the recent hedge fund action encompassing Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH).

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 56 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -11% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 61 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in MTCH a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Lone Pine Capital was the largest shareholder of Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH), with a stake worth $1220.4 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Lone Pine Capital was Steadfast Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $260.9 million. Viking Global, Citadel Investment Group, and Polar Capital 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 Fernbridge Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH), around 6.07% of its 13F portfolio. Lone Pine Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 4.11 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MTCH.

Due to the fact that Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH) has experienced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few money managers that elected to cut their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, John Armitage’s Egerton Capital Limited dumped the biggest investment of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling about $206.3 million in stock. Alexander Mitchell’s fund, Scopus Asset Management, also dropped its stock, about $112.9 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 7 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH). These stocks are Roblox Corporation (NYSE:RBLX), Ambev SA (NYSE:ABEV), Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE:SCCO), Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (NYSE:CP), Newmont Corporation (NYSE:NEM), Canadian Natural Resources Limited (NYSE:CNQ), and National Grid plc (NYSE:NGG). All of these stocks’ market caps match MTCH’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1821 million. That figure was $2663 million in MTCH’s case. Roblox Corporation (NYSE:RBLX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National Grid plc (NYSE:NGG) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Match Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTCH) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MTCH is 71.3. 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. 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. Unfortunately MTCH wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on MTCH were disappointed as the stock returned -17.2% since the end of the third quarter (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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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