Last year we predicted the arrival of the first US recession since 2009 and we told in advance that the market will decline by at least 20% in (Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW). In these volatile markets we scrutinize hedge fund filings to get a reading on which direction each stock might be going. In this article, we will take a closer look at hedge fund sentiment towards Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F).
Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) was in 49 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic was previously 42. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. F shareholders have witnessed an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. There were 41 hedge funds in our database with F positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that F isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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Richard S. Pzena of Pzena Investment Management
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Do Hedge Funds Think F Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q1’s end, a total of 49 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 20% from the fourth quarter of 2020. By comparison, 33 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in F a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) was held by Arrowstreet Capital, which reported holding $489.2 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Pzena Investment Management with a $400.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Citadel Investment Group, Alkeon Capital Management, and GLG Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Harvey Partners allocated the biggest weight to Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), around 3.06% of its 13F portfolio. Stamos Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 2.08 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to F.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Adage Capital Management, managed by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, assembled the most outsized position in Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F). Adage Capital Management had $53.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also made a $20.8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new F investors: Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, Jack Woodruff’s Candlestick Capital Management, and Franklin Parlamis’s Aequim Alternative Investments.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) but similarly valued. These stocks are ING Groep N.V. (NYSE:ING), Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW), Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA), Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB), Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), and Rocket Companies, Inc. (NYSE:RKT). All of these stocks’ market caps match F’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ING | 10 | 532082 | 1 |
| DOW | 41 | 717981 | -6 |
| WBA | 41 | 1132820 | 5 |
| KMB | 31 | 1287433 | -6 |
| PINS | 83 | 4189031 | -12 |
| LVS | 62 | 2441021 | -1 |
| RKT | 21 | 208014 | 5 |
| Average | 41.3 | 1501197 | -2 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 41.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1501 million. That figure was $2198 million in F’s case. Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ING Groep N.V. (NYSE:ING) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for F is 66.7. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.4% in 2021 through June 18th and still beat the market by 6.1 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on F as the stock returned 18.5% since the end of Q1 (through 6/18) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Follow Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
