Were Hedge Funds Right About Entergy Corporation (ETR)?

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 867 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 September 30th. Hedge funds’ consensus stock picks performed spectacularly over the last 3 years, but 2022 hasn’t been kind to hedge funds. In this article we look at how hedge funds traded Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) and determine whether the smart money was really smart about this stock.

Is Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) worth your attention right now? The smart money was in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund bets retreated by 1 in recent months. Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) was in 30 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 36. Our calculations also showed that ETR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). There were 31 hedge funds in our database with ETR positions at the end of the second quarter.

Stuart Zimmer Zimmer Partners

Stuart Zimmer of Zimmer Partners

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 we’re going to view the recent hedge fund action encompassing Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR).

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 30 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -3% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ETR over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Is ETR A Good Stock To Buy?

The largest stake in Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) was held by Citadel Investment Group, which reported holding $66.2 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Zimmer Partners with a $64.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included ExodusPoint Capital, Millennium Management, and Pzena Investment Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Zimmer Partners allocated the biggest weight to Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR), around 1.02% of its 13F portfolio. Huber Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.8 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ETR.

Due to the fact that Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) has experienced falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there exists a select few fund managers who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Renaissance Technologies cut the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth close to $12.4 million in stock. Charles Davidson and Joseph Jacobs’s fund, Wexford Capital, also said goodbye to its stock, about $6.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR). We will take a look at RingCentral Inc (NYSE:RNG), Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI), ON Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:ON), Cheniere Energy Partners LP (NYSE:CQP), Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA), Trip.com Group Limited (NASDAQ:TCOM), and Insulet Corporation (NASDAQ:PODD). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to ETR’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
RNG 48 2905250 1
DRI 25 337086 -19
ON 41 1251738 -3
CQP 3 10790 1
ULTA 42 935547 2
TCOM 36 1794035 -5
PODD 32 1318310 -6
Average 32.4 1221822 -4.1

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 32.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1222 million. That figure was $283 million in ETR’s case. RingCentral Inc (NYSE:RNG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Cheniere Energy Partners LP (NYSE:CQP) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ETR is 59. 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 29.6% in 2021 and still beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on ETR as the stock returned 13.7% since the end of the third quarter (through 1/31) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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