Is Xilinx (XLNX) Stock A Buy or Sell?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 887 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of December 31st. In this article we look at what those investors think of Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX).

Is XLNX stock a buy or sell? Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) has seen an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) was in 66 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic was previously 56. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 46 hedge funds in our database with XLNX positions at the end of the third quarter. Our calculations also showed that XLNX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

To most traders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, old investment vehicles of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, We choose to focus on the upper echelon of this group, approximately 850 funds. These hedge fund managers shepherd the majority of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by observing their matchless stock picks, Insider Monkey has figured out many investment strategies that have historically outrun the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points annually since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 13% since February 2017 (through November 17th) even though the market was up 65% during the same period. We just shared a list of 11 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

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

Heading into the first quarter of 2021, a total of 66 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 43% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards XLNX over the last 22 quarters. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Pentwater Capital Management, managed by Matthew Halbower, holds the number one position in Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX). Pentwater Capital Management has a $570.6 million position in the stock, comprising 6.9% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $313.8 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers with similar optimism contain David Goel and Paul Ferri’s Matrix Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Twin Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX), around 17.8% of its 13F portfolio. Sand Grove Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 16.88 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to XLNX.

There weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions in the stock during the fourth quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Lloyds Banking Group PLC (NYSE:LYG), Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS), eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), Lufax Holding Ltd (NYSE:LU), Manulife Financial Corporation (NYSE:MFC), Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA), and Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE:PANW). All of these stocks’ market caps match XLNX’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 28.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1429 million. That figure was $3837 million in XLNX’s case. Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE:PANW) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Lloyds Banking Group PLC (NYSE:LYG) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for XLNX is 90. 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 7% in 2021 through March 12th and still beat the market by 1.6 percentage points. Unfortunately XLNX wasn’t nearly as popular as these 30 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on XLNX were disappointed as the stock returned -11.5% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 3/12) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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