Is Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET) a good bet right now? We like to analyze hedge fund sentiment before doing days of in-depth research. We do so because hedge funds and other elite investors have numerous Ivy league graduates, expert network advisers, and supply chain tipsters working or consulting for them. There is not a shortage of news stories covering failed hedge fund investments (for some reason media paid a ton of attention to Ackman’s gigantic JC Penney and Valeant failures) and it is a fact that hedge funds’ picks don’t beat the market 100% of the time, but their consensus picks have historically done very well and have outperformed the market after adjusting for risk.
Is Metlife Inc a splendid investment now? Investors who are in the know are getting less bullish. The number of long hedge fund positions retreated by 8 recently. MET was in 47 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2015. There were 55 hedge funds in our database with MET holdings at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity, but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as National Grid plc (ADR) (NYSE:NGG), Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Grp, Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:SMFG), and Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) to gather more data points.
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According to most traders, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are over 8000 funds trading at present, We look at the upper echelon of this group, about 700 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors handle the lion’s share of the smart money’s total asset base, and by following their finest picks, Insider Monkey has formulated a few investment strategies that have historically outrun the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 12 percentage points per year for a decade in their back tests.
Now, we’re going to review the fresh action surrounding Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET).
How are hedge funds trading Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET)?
At the Q3’s end, a total of 47 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -15% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management has the biggest position in Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET), worth close to $281.7 million, comprising 1.8% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Fir Tree, managed by Jeffrey Tannenbaum, which holds a $226.9 million position; 3.8% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other members of the smart money with similar optimism encompass Mike Masters’ Masters Capital Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management.
