Hedge Funds Never Been This Bullish On Expeditors International of Washington (EXPD)

The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on March 31st, about a week after the S&P 500 Index bottomed. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 821 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD) based on those filings.

Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD) was in 31 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. EXPD has seen an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 27 hedge funds in our database with EXPD holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that EXPD 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 seen as underperforming, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at the moment, We choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this group, about 850 funds. These money managers handle most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by shadowing their finest stock picks, Insider Monkey has determined a number of investment strategies that have historically surpassed the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per 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. With all of this in mind let’s analyze the latest hedge fund action encompassing Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD).

How are hedge funds trading Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 31 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 15% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 30 hedge funds with a bullish position in EXPD a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Select Equity Group held the most valuable stake in Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD), which was worth $174.2 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was AQR Capital Management which amassed $40 million worth of shares. Holocene Advisors, GLG Partners, and Tensile Capital 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 Tensile Capital allocated the biggest weight to Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD), around 2.71% of its 13F portfolio. Select Equity Group is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 1.2 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to EXPD.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Holocene Advisors, managed by Brandon Haley, initiated the largest position in Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD). Holocene Advisors had $21.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management also initiated a $4.9 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Richard SchimeláandáLawrence Sapanski’s Cinctive Capital Management, Andrew Weiss’s Weiss Asset Management, and Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD) but similarly valued. We will take a look at SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC), Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. (NYSE:SHG), Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS), and International Flavors & Fragrances Inc (NYSE:IFF). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble EXPD’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 32.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $593 million. That figure was $346 million in EXPD’s case. SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. (NYSE:SHG) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 surpassed the market by 13.2 percentage points. Unfortunately EXPD wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); EXPD investors were disappointed as the stock returned 15.3% during the second quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.

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