Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Telefonica S.A. (TEF)

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 866 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 March 31st. In this article we look at what those investors think of Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF).

Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF) was in 6 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 10. TEF investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months. There were 5 hedge funds in our database with TEF positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that TEF isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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Ian Wace Marshall Wace

Ian Wace of Marshall Wace

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund owns nearly 40% of this $24 biotech stock and is trying to buy the rest for around $50. So, we recommended a long position to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery 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. Now let’s review the new hedge fund action surrounding Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF).

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

At Q1’s end, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 20% from the fourth quarter of 2020. By comparison, 7 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in TEF a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF) was held by Citadel Investment Group, which reported holding $3.3 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Qtron Investments with a $0.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Marshall Wace LLP, Millennium Management, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Qtron Investments allocated the biggest weight to Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF), around 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Marshall Wace LLP is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.0021 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to TEF.

Consequently, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Qtron Investments, managed by Ronald Hua, assembled the biggest position in Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF). Qtron Investments had $0.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also initiated a $0.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF). We will take a look at Yum China Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:YUMC), Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings (NYSE:LH), Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY), Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (NYSE:DB), Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CUK), and Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (NASDAQ:MXIM). This group of stocks’ market caps match TEF’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
YUMC 34 975839 -5
LH 54 2476443 -12
OXY 52 3418445 3
DB 16 1773587 0
EXPE 86 6157292 10
CUK 4 105412 -3
MXIM 55 3238393 1
Average 43 2592202 -0.9

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 43 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2592 million. That figure was $5 million in TEF’s case. Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CUK) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Telefonica S.A. (NYSE:TEF) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for TEF is 25.2. 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 19.3% in 2021 through June 25th and beat the market by 4.8 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on TEF, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 10% since the end of Q1 (through June 25th) and outperformed the market.

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