Liberty Broadband Corp (LBRDK): Hedge Fund Sentiment Unchanged

Hedge funds and large money managers usually invest with a focus on the long-term horizon and, therefore, short-lived dips or bumps on the charts usually don’t make them change their opinion towards a company. This time it may be different. The coronavirus pandemic destroyed the high correlations among major industries and asset classes. We are now in a stock pickers market where fundamentals of a stock have more effect on the price than the overall direction of the market. As a result we observe sudden and large changes in hedge fund positions depending on the news flow. Let’s take a look at the hedge fund sentiment towards Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) to find out whether there were any major changes in hedge funds’ views.

Hedge fund interest in Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. Our calculations also showed that LBRDK isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). At the end of this article we will also compare LBRDK to other stocks including LyondellBasell Industries NV (NYSE:LYB), Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE:BF), and MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so 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. With all of this in mind let’s take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK).

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 63 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in LBRDK over the last 25 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Eagle Capital Management, managed by Boykin Curry, holds the largest position in Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK). Eagle Capital Management has a $1.53 billion position in the stock, comprising 4.5% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Aristeia Capital, led by Robert Henry Lynch, holding a $946.9 million position; the fund has 17.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers that are bullish comprise George Soros’s Soros Fund Management, Bob Peck and Andy Raab’s FPR Partners and Sharlyn C. Heslam’s Stockbridge Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Makaira Partners allocated the biggest weight to Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK), around 33.57% of its 13F portfolio. Cat Rock Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 27.15 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LBRDK.

Because Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) has experienced a decline in interest from the smart money, we can see that there is a sect of hedgies who sold off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital dumped the biggest stake of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $54.3 million in stock. Charles Pollnow’s fund, Triple Frond Partners, also said goodbye to its stock, about $31.7 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK). We will take a look at LyondellBasell Industries NV (NYSE:LYB), Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE:BF), MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB), Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW), Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:FMX), Ferguson plc (NYSE:FERG), and State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to LBRDK’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1938 million. That figure was $7101 million in LBRDK’s case. MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ferguson plc (NYSE:FERG) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDK) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LBRDK is 78.6. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately LBRDK wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on LBRDK were disappointed as the stock returned -10.3% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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