Is Liberty Media Group (LMCA) A Good Stock To Buy?

Most investors tend to think that hedge funds and other asset managers are worthless, as they cannot beat even simple index fund portfolios. In fact, most people expect hedge funds to compete with and outperform the bull market that we have witnessed over the past few years. However, hedge funds are generally partially hedged and aim at delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns rather than following the ups and downs of equity markets hoping that they will outperform the broader market. Our research shows that hedge funds do have great stock picking skills, so let’s take a glance at the smart money sentiment towards Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA).

Is Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Hedge funds are in a bullish mood. The number of long hedge fund bets inched up by 8 lately. LMCA was in 29 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 21 hedge funds in our database with LMCA positions at the end of the previous quarter. 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 Omega Healthcare Investors Inc (NYSE:OHI), Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCK), and EQT Midstream Partners LP (NYSE:EQM) to gather more data points.

Follow Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LSXMK)

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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How are hedge funds trading Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a rise of 38% from the second quarter of 2016. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

HedgeFundSentimentChart

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Jeffrey Bronchick’s Cove Street Capital has the most valuable position in Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA), worth close to $38.8 million, corresponding to 4.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett, holding a $37.1 million position. Other professional money managers that are bullish comprise Nehal Chopra’s Ratan Capital Group, Crispin Odey’s Odey Asset Management Group and Jonathan Auerbach’s Hound Partners.

Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Cove Street Capital assembled the most outsized position in Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA). Cove Street Capital had $38.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.  Ratan Capital Group also made a $29.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new LMCA positions are Odey Asset Management Group, Hound Partners, and Glen Kacher’s Light Street Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA). These stocks are Omega Healthcare Investors Inc (NYSE:OHI), Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCK), EQT Midstream Partners LP (NYSE:EQM), and Axalta Coating Systems Ltd (NYSE:AXTA). This group of stocks’ market caps match LMCA’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
OHI 11 50369 -4
LMCK 19 651364 -1
EQM 8 66731 -3
AXTA 49 2881916 6

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $913 million. That figure was $286 million in LMCA’s case. Axalta Coating Systems Ltd (NYSE:AXTA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand EQT Midstream Partners LP (NYSE:EQM) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard AXTA might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

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Disclosure: None