Is GSX A Good Stock To Buy Now?

With the third-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the fourth quarter. One of these stocks was GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX).

Is GSX a good stock to buy now? The smart money was getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund positions increased by 5 in recent months. GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX) was in 18 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 13. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that GSX 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).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

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 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.

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 15 best blue chip stocks 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. 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. With all of this in mind let’s take a gander at the key hedge fund action encompassing GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX).

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

At the end of September, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 38% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 3 hedge funds with a bullish position in GSX a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX) was held by Tiger Global Management LLC, which reported holding $272.2 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Citadel Investment Group with a $62.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Two Sigma Advisors, Bridgewater Associates, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Greenspring Associates allocated the biggest weight to GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX), around 6.52% of its 13F portfolio. North Fourth Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 2.18 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GSX.

As one would reasonably expect, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Tiger Global Management LLC, managed by Chase Coleman, established the most valuable position in GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX). Tiger Global Management LLC had $272.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates also initiated a $18.7 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new GSX investors: Jeffrey Diehl’s Adams Street Partners, C. Ashton Newhall and James Lim’s Greenspring Associates, and Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Weyerhaeuser Co. (NYSE:WY), Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL), TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NYSE:AMTD), AvalonBay Communities Inc (NYSE:AVB), Realty Income Corporation (NYSE:O), EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG), and DraftKings Inc. (NASDAQ:DKNG). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to GSX’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 36.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $801 million. That figure was $387 million in GSX’s case. Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ:ODFL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Realty Income Corporation (NYSE:O) is the least popular one with only 24 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks GSX Techedu Inc. (NYSE:GSX) is even less popular than O. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GSX is 40. 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. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards GSX. Our calculations showed that the top 20 most popular hedge fund stocks 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 December 14th but managed to beat the market again by 15.8 percentage points. Unfortunately GSX wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); GSX investors were disappointed as the stock returned -34% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/14) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in 2020.

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