Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On XPO Logistics Inc (XPO)

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. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 873 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO).

XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO) was in 57 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 47. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. XPO investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment recently. There were 40 hedge funds in our database with XPO holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that XPO isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

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At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium 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. Keeping this in mind let’s go over the recent hedge fund action encompassing XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO).

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

At the end of June, a total of 57 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 43% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards XPO over the last 24 quarters. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, 0, managed by William B. Gray, holds the most valuable position in XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO). Orbis Investment Management has a $1.5664 billion position in the stock, comprising 9.9% of its 13F portfolio. On Orbis Investment Management’s heels is 0, led by Andrew Wellington and Jeff Keswin, holding a $392.4 million position; the fund has 4.8% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other professional money managers that hold long positions include Farhad Nanji and Michael DeMichele’s 0, Michael A. Price and Amos Meron’s 0 and Ken Griffin’s 0. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Lansing Management allocated the biggest weight to XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO), around 15.05% of its 13F portfolio. Orbis Investment Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 9.9 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to XPO.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Empyrean Capital Partners, managed by Michael A. Price and Amos Meron, initiated the biggest position in XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO). Empyrean Capital Partners had $109.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jeffrey Gates’s Gates Capital Management also made a $49 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new XPO positions are Joseph Samuels’s Islet Management, Jeffrey Talpins’s Element Capital Management, and Guy Shahar’s DSAM Partners.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at NICE Ltd (NASDAQ:NICE), Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (NYSE:WAB), Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT), Discovery Inc. (NASDAQ:DISCA), Enel Americas S.A. (NYSE:ENIA), argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX), and BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:BMRN). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to XPO’s market valuation.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 30.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1176 million. That figure was $3138 million in XPO’s case. Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (NYSE:WAB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Enel Americas S.A. (NYSE:ENIA) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for XPO is 90. 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 returned 25.7% in 2021 through September 27th but still managed to beat the market by 6.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on XPO as the stock returned 4.8% since the end of June (through 9/27) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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