Is Zions Bancorp (ZION) A Good Stock To Buy?

Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track more than 700 prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile gigantic failures like hedge funds’ recent losses in Valeant. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) in this article.

Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund interest lately. ZION was in 39 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 40 hedge funds in our database with ZION holdings 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 Dicks Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS), Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE), and EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR) to gather more data points.

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.

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at the new action surrounding Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION).

How are hedge funds trading Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 39 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -3% from the second quarter of 2016. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, holds the most valuable position in Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION). Millennium Management has a $102.5 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Martin Whitman of Third Avenue Management, with a $58.8 million position; the fund has 2.7% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions encompass Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Emanuel J. Friedman’s EJF Capital and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.

Judging by the fact that Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there were a few funds who sold off their full holdings last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Carson Yost’s Yost Capital Management cut the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $11.4 million in stock. Matthew Tewksbury’s fund, Stevens Capital Management, also dropped its stock, about $7.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) but similarly valued. These stocks are Dicks Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS), Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE), EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR), and Weingarten Realty Investors (NYSE:WRI). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble ZION’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $516 million. That figure was $472 million in ZION’s case. Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Weingarten Realty Investors (NYSE:WRI) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) 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 PE might be a better candidate to consider a long position.