Is REG Stock A Buy or Sell?

In this article we will analyze whether Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There’s no better way to get these firms’ immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, our research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market by double digits annually.

Is REG stock a buy? Investors who are in the know were in a bullish mood. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 1 recently. Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) was in 24 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 23. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that REG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

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 124 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

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

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 4% from the third quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards REG over the last 22 quarters. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Stuart J. Zimmer’s Zimmer Partners has the largest position in Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG), worth close to $92.3 million, comprising 1.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw, with a $28.6 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other members of the smart money with similar optimism encompass Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Ken Heebner’s Capital Growth Management and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Hill Winds Capital allocated the biggest weight to Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG), around 5.98% of its 13F portfolio. Capital Growth Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 2.2 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to REG.

Now, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Capital Growth Management, managed by Ken Heebner, established the most valuable position in Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG). Capital Growth Management had $21.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Crandall Gilman’s Hill Winds Capital also initiated a $8.1 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new REG investors: Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, Brad Dunkley and Blair Levinsky’s Waratah Capital Advisors, and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG). These stocks are AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO), Acceleron Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:XLRN), Commerce Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBSH), OneConnect Financial Technology Co., Ltd. (NYSE:OCFT), Churchill Downs Incorporated (NASDAQ:CHDN), Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S.A. (NYSE:AVAL), and Americold Realty Trust (NYSE:COLD). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to REG’s market valuation.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 21.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $478 million. That figure was $242 million in REG’s case. AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S.A. (NYSE:AVAL) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for REG is 63.8. 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 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on REG as the stock returned 32.4% since the end of Q4 (through 4/19) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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

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