The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the first quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of March 31. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK).
The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest of late. BATRK was in 28 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 27 hedge funds in our database with BATRK positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that batrk isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter. Even if you aren’t comfortable with shorting stocks, you should at least avoid initiating long positions in our short portfolio.
Let’s analyze the key hedge fund action regarding The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK).
What have hedge funds been doing with The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 28 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 4% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in BATRK over the last 15 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Park West Asset Management, managed by Peter S. Park, holds the largest position in The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK). Park West Asset Management has a $72.3 million position in the stock, comprising 3.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Tensile Capital, managed by Douglas Dossey and Arthur Young, which holds a $51.4 million position; 7.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions contain Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors, Kenneth Mario Garschina’s Mason Capital Management and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, assembled the most valuable position in The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK). Arrowstreet Capital had $1.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new BATRK positions are Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, John A. Levin’s Levin Capital Strategies, and Andrew Feldstein and Stephen Siderow’s Blue Mountain Capital.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK). We will take a look at TPG RE Finance Trust, Inc. (NYSE:TRTX), GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG), Signet Jewelers Limited (NYSE:SIG), and PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:PMT). This group of stocks’ market values match BATRK’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRTX | 11 | 42060 | 2 |
| GLOG | 11 | 53355 | -4 |
| SIG | 17 | 119385 | -4 |
| PMT | 17 | 51537 | 6 |
| Average | 14 | 66584 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $67 million. That figure was $333 million in BATRK’s case. Signet Jewelers Limited (NYSE:SIG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TPG RE Finance Trust, Inc. (NYSE:TRTX) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks The Liberty Braves Group (NASDAQ:BATRK) is more popular among hedge funds. 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. Unfortunately BATRK wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on BATRK were disappointed as the stock returned -3.6% during the same period 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 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q2.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
