Hedge Funds Getting Bullish On Amcor plc (AMCR)

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the first quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 4.5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR) based on that data.

Is Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR) the right pick for your portfolio? Hedge funds are turning bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets improved by 9 recently. Our calculations also showed that AMCR 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.

In the eyes of most shareholders, hedge funds are seen as underperforming, outdated financial vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at present, Our researchers choose to focus on the masters of this group, approximately 850 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors preside over most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by keeping track of their inimitable equity investments, Insider Monkey has deciphered several investment strategies that have historically defeated the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy defeated the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a look at the key hedge fund action regarding Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR).

What have hedge funds been doing with Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 90% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in AMCR over the last 18 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Polaris Capital Management held the most valuable stake in Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR), which was worth $76.2 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Citadel Investment Group which amassed $64.7 million worth of shares. Millennium Management, Adage Capital Management, and D E Shaw 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 Polaris Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR), around 4.6% of its 13F portfolio. Gotham Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.17 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMCR.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Polaris Capital Management, managed by Bernard Horn, assembled the largest position in Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR). Polaris Capital Management had $76.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $21.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new AMCR positions are Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners, Peter Muller’s PDT Partners, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE:LDOS), Nomura Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:NMR), Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL), and Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ:STX). This group of stocks’ market values match AMCR’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $944 million. That figure was $208 million in AMCR’s case. Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Nomura Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:NMR) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Amcor plc (NYSE:AMCR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 13.4% in 2020 through June 22nd and still beat the market by 15.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on AMCR as the stock returned 27.9% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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