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 750 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 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.
Is 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS) the right pick for your portfolio? Money managers are getting less optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets fell by 1 lately. Our calculations also showed that FLWS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
To the average investor there are plenty of signals shareholders can use to analyze their stock investments. Some of the most innovative signals are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best investment managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a solid margin (see the details here).
Bruce Kovner of Caxton Associates
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS).
How are hedge funds trading 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -5% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 14 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in FLWS a year ago. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, Arrowstreet Capital held the most valuable stake in 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS), which was worth $9.3 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was GAMCO Investors which amassed $9.1 million worth of shares. Citadel Investment Group, AQR Capital Management, and D E Shaw 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 Beddow Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS), around 2.24% of its 13F portfolio. Intrinsic Edge Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.56 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FLWS.
Judging by the fact that 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS) has witnessed a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of money managers that elected to cut their full holdings last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management sold off the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, valued at about $1.8 million in stock, and Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $1.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS). We will take a look at Caleres Inc (NYSE:CAL), Valaris plc (NYSE:VAL), OneSpaWorld Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:OSW), and Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble FLWS’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAL | 15 | 75737 | 7 |
| VAL | 18 | 172771 | -10 |
| OSW | 8 | 68378 | -3 |
| UTL | 12 | 85939 | 3 |
| Average | 13.25 | 100706 | -0.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $101 million. That figure was $64 million in FLWS’s case. Valaris plc (NYSE:VAL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand OneSpaWorld Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:OSW) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately FLWS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on FLWS were disappointed as the stock returned -9% during the first two months of the fourth 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q4.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
