Is Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA) a good place to invest some of your money right now? We can gain invaluable insight to help us answer that question by studying the investment trends of top investors, who employ world-class Ivy League graduates, who are given immense resources and industry contacts to put their financial expertise to work. The top picks of these firms have historically outperformed the market when we account for known risk factors, making them very valuable investment ideas.
Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. LEXEA has experienced an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with LEXEA holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that LEXEA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since May 2014 through March 12, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.5% through March 12, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Sander Gerber of Hudson Bay Capital
We’re going to take a look at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA).
Hedge fund activity in Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA)
Heading into the first quarter of 2019, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 8% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards LEXEA over the last 14 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA) was held by Hudson Bay Capital Management, which reported holding $82.7 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by FPR Partners with a $71.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included D E Shaw, Polar Capital, and Fort Baker Capital Management.
As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers have jumped into Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA) headfirst. Carlson Capital, managed by Clint Carlson, assembled the biggest position in Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA). Carlson Capital had $16.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Michael Hintze’s CQS Cayman LP also initiated a $11.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and Matthew Halbower’s Pentwater Capital Management.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA) but similarly valued. These stocks are WESCO International, Inc. (NYSE:WCC), Korn Ferry (NYSE:KFY), Eldorado Gold Corp (NYSE:EGO), and Yamana Gold Inc. (NYSE:AUY). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble LEXEA’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| WCC | 26 | 387245 | 0 |
| KFY | 21 | 78489 | 1 |
| EGO | 8 | 4288 | -1 |
| AUY | 19 | 78472 | 1 |
| Average | 18.5 | 137124 | 0.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 18.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $137 million. That figure was $355 million in LEXEA’s case. WESCO International, Inc. (NYSE:WCC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Eldorado Gold Corp (NYSE:EGO) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEXEA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. Unfortunately LEXEA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock and hedge funds that were betting on LEXEA were disappointed as the stock returned 13.7% and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
