At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 750 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of March 31. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA) makes for a good investment right now.
Is Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA) a buy here? The best stock pickers are getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund positions moved up by 4 recently. Our calculations also showed that tgna isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
To most traders, hedge funds are viewed as unimportant, outdated investment vehicles of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation today, We look at the elite of this group, around 750 funds. These hedge fund managers have their hands on bulk of the smart money’s total capital, and by shadowing their finest investments, Insider Monkey has found numerous investment strategies that have historically outpaced the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outrun the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points annually since its inception in May 2014 through the end of May. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 30.9% since February 2017 (through May 30th) even though the market was up nearly 24% during the same period. We just shared a list of 5 short targets in our latest quarterly update and they are already down an average of 11.9% in less than a couple of weeks whereas our long picks outperformed the market by 2 percentage points in this volatile 2 week period.
Let’s check out the key hedge fund action regarding Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA).
What have hedge funds been doing with Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 18% from the fourth quarter of 2018. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards TGNA over the last 15 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA) was held by AQR Capital Management, which reported holding $131.8 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Ariel Investments with a $97.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Diamond Hill Capital, Cove Street Capital, and Arrowstreet Capital.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds have jumped into Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA) headfirst. Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, created the largest position in Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA). Renaissance Technologies had $23.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jamie Zimmerman’s Litespeed Management also made a $6.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new TGNA investors: Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA). These stocks are Boyd Gaming Corporation (NYSE:BYD), Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG), Kennametal Inc. (NYSE:KMT), and Q2 Holdings Inc (NYSE:QTWO). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to TGNA’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BYD | 28 | 404116 | -2 |
| MOG | 17 | 90968 | 4 |
| KMT | 20 | 271144 | -1 |
| QTWO | 15 | 67077 | 3 |
| Average | 20 | 208326 | 1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $208 million. That figure was $470 million in TGNA’s case. Boyd Gaming Corporation (NYSE:BYD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Q2 Holdings Inc (NYSE:QTWO) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 1.9% in Q2 through May 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on TGNA as the stock returned 9.3% during the same period and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
