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 Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN).
Is Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) a good investment today? Investors who are in the know are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund bets were trimmed by 4 in recent months. At the end of this article we will also compare VRSN to other stocks including Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP), Ingredion Inc (NYSE:INGR), and KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY) to get a better sense of its popularity.
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How have hedgies been trading Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a decrease of 13% from the second quarter of 2016, as hedge fund ownership of VRSN trends down for the second-straight quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Berkshire Hathaway, managed by Warren Buffett, holds the largest position in Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN). According to regulatory filings, Berkshire has a $1.01 billion position in the stock. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, with a $368.8 million position. Other professional money managers that hold long positions comprise David E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Howard Guberman’s Gruss Asset Management, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.
Due to the fact that Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) has faced falling interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there exists a select few hedgies who sold off their full holdings in the third quarter. Interestingly, Christopher Lyle’s SCGE Management dropped the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling about $17.3 million in stock, and Thomas Bancroft’s Makaira Partners was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $9.5 million worth of VRSN shares. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds in the third quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP), Ingredion Inc (NYSE:INGR), KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY), and Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble VRSN’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRIP | 40 | 853214 | 7 |
| INGR | 23 | 406753 | 5 |
| KEY | 42 | 727656 | -4 |
| IPG | 31 | 1267574 | -4 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 34 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $814 million. That figure was $2.17 billion in VRSN’s case. KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ingredion Inc (NYSE:INGR) is the least popular one with only 23 bullish hedge fund positions. Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on recently. In this regard TRIP might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.
Disclosure: None
