Were Hedge Funds Right About Selling Copa Holdings, S.A. (CPA)?

At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 866 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of March 31st. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA) makes for a good investment right now.

Is Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA) a safe investment today? The best stock pickers were getting less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets decreased by 3 recently. Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA) was in 18 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 29. Our calculations also showed that CPA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

At the moment there are several formulas market participants have at their disposal to assess their holdings. Some of the most useful formulas are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outpace the market by a significant margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .

Lee Ainslie's Top 10 Stock Picks

Lee Ainslie of Maverick Capital

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, pet market is growing at a 7% annual rate and is expected to reach $110 billion in 2021. So, we are checking out the 5 best stocks for animal lovers. We go through lists like the 15 best Jim Cramer stocks to identify the next Tesla that will deliver outsized returns. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind let’s check out the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA).

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -14% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CPA over the last 23 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 CPA A Good Stock To Buy?

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA), with a stake worth $42.9 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was AQR Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $30.8 million. Greenvale Capital, Balyasny Asset Management, and Alyeska Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Greenvale Capital allocated the biggest weight to Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA), around 3.34% of its 13F portfolio. Prince Street Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 2.28 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CPA.

Since Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA) has faced bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few hedgies who sold off their positions entirely heading into Q2. At the top of the heap, Doug Gordon, Jon Hilsabeck and Don Jabro’s Shellback Capital cut the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $17.8 million in stock. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s fund, Arrowstreet Capital, also cut its stock, about $13.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds heading into Q2.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA). We will take a look at 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD), Visteon Corp (NYSE:VC), Instil Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:TIL), BancorpSouth Bank (NYSE:BXS), Utz Brands Inc (NYSE:UTZ), Equity Commonwealth (NYSE:EQC), and Cerence Inc. (NASDAQ:CRNC). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to CPA’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
DDD 16 315553 1
VC 20 196777 -3
TIL 21 778526 21
BXS 12 66932 -3
UTZ 13 110348 -2
EQC 21 183175 3
CRNC 20 213371 6
Average 17.6 266383 3.3

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $266 million. That figure was $213 million in CPA’s case. Instil Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:TIL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BancorpSouth Bank (NYSE:BXS) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE:CPA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CPA is 54. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 28.5% in 2021 through July 23rd and beat the market again by 10.1 percentage points. Unfortunately CPA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on CPA were disappointed as the stock returned -12.8% since the end of March (through 7/23) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

Follow Copa Holdings Sa (NYSE:CPA)

Suggested Articles:

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