Hedge Funds Done Selling Banco Macro SA (BMA)

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 821 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, near the height of the coronavirus market crash. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA) based on that data.

Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA) was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. BMA investors should be aware of an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 7 hedge funds in our database with BMA positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that BMA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

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. 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 58 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 36% through May 18th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, We take a look at lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to identify the compounders that are likely to deliver double digit returns. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. For example we are checking out stocks recommended/scorned by legendary Bill Miller. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 in February after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind let’s take a look at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA).

How are hedge funds trading Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 14% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 16 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BMA a year ago. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Odey Asset Management Group, managed by Crispin Odey, holds the most valuable position in Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA). Odey Asset Management Group has a $46.6 million position in the stock, comprising 7.7% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell of Arrowstreet Capital, with a $4.8 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other peers that are bullish contain Renaissance Technologies, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Bruce J. Richards and Louis Hanover’s Marathon Asset Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Odey Asset Management Group allocated the biggest weight to Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA), around 7.75% of its 13F portfolio. Caxton Associates LP is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.07 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BMA.

As one would reasonably expect, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Marathon Asset Management, managed by Bruce J. Richards and Louis Hanover, initiated the biggest position in Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA). Marathon Asset Management had $0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.4 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new BMA position is Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA). We will take a look at Deluxe Corporation (NYSE:DLX), BancFirst Corporation (NASDAQ:BANF), Dril-Quip, Inc. (NYSE:DRQ), and TTM Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTMI). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble BMA’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $60 million. That figure was $55 million in BMA’s case. Deluxe Corporation (NYSE:DLX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TTM Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTMI) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Banco Macro SA (NYSE:BMA) is even less popular than TTMI. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards BMA. Our calculations showed that the top 10 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.2% in 2020 through June 17th but managed to beat the market by 14.8 percentage points. Unfortunately BMA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); BMA investors were disappointed as the stock returned 16.5% during the second quarter (through June 17th) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in 2020.

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