After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from the more than 700 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of September 30. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR).
Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. VGR was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with VGR positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare VGR to other stocks including DCP Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:DPM), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co (NASDAQ:HMHC), and Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR)
Follow Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR)
In the eyes of most investors, hedge funds are perceived as unimportant, old investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than an 8000 funds in operation today, Our researchers hone in on the moguls of this club, approximately 700 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors manage most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by tailing their best stock picks, Insider Monkey has figured out many investment strategies that have historically beaten the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s small-cap hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 index by 12 percentage points per year for a decade in their back tests.
With all of this in mind, let’s take a glance at the key action surrounding Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR).
What have hedge funds been doing with Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a drop of 11% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies has the largest position in Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR), worth close to $130.8 million, amounting to 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’s heels is Blue Mountain Capital, managed by Andrew Feldstein and Stephen Siderow, which holds a $29.4 million position; 0.5% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions consist of Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
Judging by the fact that Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR) has witnessed a declination in interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of money managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, Matthew Knauer and Mina Faltas’s Nokota Management dumped the biggest position of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at about $19.6 million in stock, and Nick Niell’s Arrowgrass Capital Partners was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $7.2 million worth of VGR shares. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds last quarter.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR). These stocks are DCP Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:DPM), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co (NASDAQ:HMHC), Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR), and Care Capital Properties Inc (NYSE:CCP). This group of stocks’ market values resemble VGR’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| DPM | 10 | 14338 | 5 |
| HMHC | 37 | 1033218 | 3 |
| BRKR | 20 | 137638 | 5 |
| CCP | 13 | 106887 | 13 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $323 million. That figure was $234 million in VGR’s case. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co (NASDAQ:HMHC) is the most popular stock in this table, whereas DCP Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:DPM) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Vector Group Ltd (NYSE:VGR) is not the least popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard HMHC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
