Hedge Funds Have Never Been More Bullish On Teleflex Incorporated (TFX)

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX).

Hedge fund interest in Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. 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 Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE:AGR), Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO), and M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE:MTB) to gather more data points. Our calculations also showed that TFX 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 traders, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, old investment vehicles of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, Our experts choose to focus on the upper echelon of this club, around 850 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people control bulk of the smart money’s total asset base, and by tailing their finest equity investments, Insider Monkey has unearthed various investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy exceeded the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year 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 .

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out trades like this one. 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. Now we’re going to view the latest hedge fund action regarding Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX).

Hedge fund activity in Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX)

At Q1’s end, a total of 32 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards TFX over the last 18 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Select Equity Group was the largest shareholder of Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX), with a stake worth $192.2 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Select Equity Group was Marshall Wace LLP, which amassed a stake valued at $122.4 million. Healthcor Management LP, GQG Partners, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Healthcor Management LP allocated the biggest weight to Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX), around 5.09% of its 13F portfolio. Osterweis Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.63 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to TFX.

Since Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX) has faced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who sold off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital dumped the largest position of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $34.9 million in stock. Bhagwan Jay Rao’s fund, Integral Health Asset Management, also cut its stock, about $7.9 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX). We will take a look at Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE:AGR), Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO), M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE:MTB), and W.W. Grainger, Inc. (NYSE:GWW). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to TFX’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 32.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $807 million. That figure was $766 million in TFX’s case. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE:AGR) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX) 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 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May and still beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on TFX as the stock returned 24% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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