Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Invesco Ltd. (IVZ)

Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of June. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 900 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.

Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ) investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ) was in 40 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic was previously 38. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 32 hedge funds in our database with IVZ positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that IVZ isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are many gauges shareholders can use to size up their stock investments. Two of the less utilized gauges are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a significant margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 (through August 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 79 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, we like undervalued, EBITDA-positive growth stocks, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging biotech stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind let’s take a peek at the recent hedge fund action regarding Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ).

Do Hedge Funds Think IVZ Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At Q2’s end, a total of 40 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 25% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 22 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in IVZ a year ago. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Trian Partners, managed by Nelson Peltz, holds the number one position in Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ). Trian Partners has a $955.7 million position in the stock, comprising 11.2% of its 13F portfolio. On Trian Partners’s heels is Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, which holds a $80 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining professional money managers that hold long positions contain Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management, Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Trian Partners allocated the biggest weight to Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ), around 11.17% of its 13F portfolio. Full18 Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 3.64 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IVZ.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Azora Capital, managed by Ravi Chopra, created the biggest position in Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ). Azora Capital had $18.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management also initiated a $18.7 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, and Sander Gerber’s Hudson Bay Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ) but similarly valued. We will take a look at iQIYI, Inc. (NASDAQ:IQ), Five9 Inc (NASDAQ:FIVN), CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP), Teck Resources Ltd (NYSE:TECK), Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM), InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (NYSE:IHG), and Black Knight, Inc. (NYSE:BKI). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to IVZ’s market valuation.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 30 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1053 million. That figure was $1344 million in IVZ’s case. Five9 Inc (NASDAQ:FIVN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (NYSE:IHG) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IVZ is 83.6. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 21.8% in 2021 through October 11th and beat the market again by 4.4 percentage points. Unfortunately IVZ wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on IVZ were disappointed as the stock returned -6.6% since the end of June (through 10/11) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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