Is Molina Healthcare, Inc. (MOH) Going To Take Off Soon?

The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the second quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of June 30th. 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 Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH).

Is Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) going to take off soon? The best stock pickers were in an optimistic mood. The number of bullish hedge fund positions inched up by 3 in recent months. Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) was in 34 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 35. Our calculations also showed that MOH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 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. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can’t expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. 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 79 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds’ moves today.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, we like undervalued, EBITDA-positive growth stocks, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging biotech stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. Now we’re going to take a peek at the recent hedge fund action encompassing Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH).

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

Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 10% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 34 hedge funds with a bullish position in MOH a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH), with a stake worth $569 million reported as of the end of June. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Viking Global, which amassed a stake valued at $246.3 million. Iridian Asset Management, AQR Capital Management, and Arrowstreet Capital were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Iron Triangle Partners allocated the biggest weight to Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH), around 6.18% of its 13F portfolio. Iridian Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 2.24 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MOH.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, created the most outsized position in Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH). Marshall Wace LLP had $2.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital also made a $1.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new MOH positions are Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital, Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH). These stocks are Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM), GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS), Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY), Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS), UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR), Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO), and Apollo Global Management Inc (NYSE:APO). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to MOH’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1345 million. That figure was $1619 million in MOH’s case. Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the least popular one with only 23 bullish hedge fund positions. Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MOH is 71.5. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 21.8% in 2021 through October 11th and still beat the market by 4.4 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on MOH as the stock returned 10.3% since the end of Q2 (through 10/11) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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

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