A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF).
Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. Our calculations also showed that GRIF isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks). The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT), Gladstone Investment Corporation (NASDAQ:GAIN), and Village Farms International, Inc. (NASDAQ:VFF) to gather more data points.
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 66 percentage points since March 2017 (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 13% through November 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Phillip Goldstein of Bulldog Investors
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Keeping this in mind we’re going to view the fresh hedge fund action regarding Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF).
How have hedgies been trading Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in GRIF over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors has the most valuable position in Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF), worth close to $34.4 million, comprising 0.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Renaissance Technologies, holding a $2.6 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish contain Phillip Goldstein, Andrew Dakos and Steven Samuels’s Bulldog Investors, Frederick DiSanto’s Ancora Advisors and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Bulldog Investors allocated the biggest weight to Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF), around 0.62% of its 13F portfolio. GAMCO Investors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.38 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GRIF.
Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF). We will take a look at Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT), Gladstone Investment Corporation (NASDAQ:GAIN), Village Farms International, Inc. (NASDAQ:VFF), NeoPhotonics Corp (NYSE:NPTN), CooTek (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE:CTK), Covenant Logistics Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLG), and Vitru Limited (NASDAQ:VTRU). This group of stocks’ market valuations match GRIF’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| GILT | 7 | 29466 | -1 |
| GAIN | 3 | 1980 | -2 |
| VFF | 7 | 7152 | 5 |
| NPTN | 17 | 52209 | -6 |
| CTK | 1 | 529 | -1 |
| CVLG | 11 | 24574 | 1 |
| VTRU | 9 | 11476 | 9 |
| Average | 7.9 | 18198 | 0.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $18 million. That figure was $39 million in GRIF’s case. NeoPhotonics Corp (NYSE:NPTN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CooTek (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE:CTK) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRIF) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GRIF is 44.4. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 30.7% in 2020 through November 27th and still beat the market by 16.1 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on GRIF as the stock returned 33.8% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/27) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
