Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Reinsurance Group of America Inc (RGA)

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA).

Is Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA) a buy here? Money managers were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 4 in recent months. Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA) was in 32 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 33. Our calculations also showed that RGA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to view the latest hedge fund action encompassing Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA).

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

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 32 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 14% from the second quarter of 2021. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in RGA over the last 25 quarters. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Millennium Management held the most valuable stake in Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA), which was worth $75.1 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Citadel Investment Group which amassed $69 million worth of shares. Polar Capital, Pzena Investment Management, and Balyasny Asset Management 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 Invenomic Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA), around 2.51% of its 13F portfolio. Prana Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.23 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to RGA.

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, assembled the most outsized position in Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA). Point72 Asset Management had $7.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Daniel Johnson’s Gillson Capital also initiated a $5.8 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new RGA investors: Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital, Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners, and Allon Hellmann’s Full18 Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (NYSE:CFR), Vipshop Holdings Limited (NYSE:VIPS), Tandem Diabetes Care Inc (NASDAQ:TNDM), Education Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:EDR), BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BJ), Autoliv Inc. (NYSE:ALV), and YETI Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:YETI). This group of stocks’ market caps match RGA’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $860 million. That figure was $452 million in RGA’s case. Tandem Diabetes Care Inc (NASDAQ:TNDM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (NYSE:CFR) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Reinsurance Group of America Inc (NYSE:RGA) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for RGA is 88.1. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately RGA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on RGA were disappointed as the stock returned -14.1% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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

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