Is BXP Stock A Buy or Sell?

Is Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) 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.

Is BXP stock a buy? Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money of late. Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) was in 30 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 36. Our calculations also showed that BXP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here).

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we heard that billionaire Peter Thiel is backing this psychedelic-drug startup. So, we are taking a closer look at this space. We go through lists like the 10 best biotech stocks under $10 to identify the next stock with 10x upside potential. 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 website. Now let’s take a look at the new hedge fund action surrounding Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP).

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

At the end of December, a total of 30 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 15% from the third quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in BXP over the last 22 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management has the largest position in Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP), worth close to $25.9 million, comprising less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Richard Mashaal of Rima Senvest Management, with a $24.7 million position; the fund has 1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, David Fear’s Thunderbird Partners and Frank Brosens’s Taconic Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Masterton Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP), around 2.59% of its 13F portfolio. Amitell Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 2.47 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BXP.

As one would reasonably expect, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Thunderbird Partners, managed by David Fear, created the most outsized position in Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP). Thunderbird Partners had $22.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. J. Alan Reid, Jr.’s Forward Management also initiated a $4.9 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BXP investors: Peter Galgay’s Amitell Capital, Nicholas Bagnall’s Te Ahumairangi Investment Management, and Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at ABIOMED, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABMD), Campbell Soup Company (NYSE:CPB), Arch Capital Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:ACGL), Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP), Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC), Mid America Apartment Communities Inc (NYSE:MAA), and Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE:ELAN). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to BXP’s market valuation.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 27.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $698 million. That figure was $232 million in BXP’s case. Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE:ELAN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for BXP is 61.6. 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 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.2% in 2021 through April 12th and still beat the market by 1.5 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on BXP as the stock returned 12.3% since the end of Q4 (through 4/12) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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