Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (AMBP)?

Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track nearly 900 active 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 failures like hedge funds’ 2018 losses in Facebook and Apple. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP) in this article.

Is Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP) a buy, sell, or hold? Money managers were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions moved up by 27 recently. Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP) was in 27 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that AMBP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

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 look at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP).

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

At Q3’s end, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 27 from the second quarter of 2021. On the other hand, there were a total of 0 hedge funds with a bullish position in AMBP a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Brahman Capital was the largest shareholder of Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP), with a stake worth $73.1 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Brahman Capital was Hawk Ridge Management, which amassed a stake valued at $44.2 million. Canyon Capital Advisors, Empyrean Capital Partners, and Point State Capital 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 Mountaineer Partners Management allocated the biggest weight to Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP), around 6.85% of its 13F portfolio. Brahman Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 5.35 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMBP.

As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Brahman Capital, managed by Mitch Kuflik and Rob Sobel, assembled the most valuable position in Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP). Brahman Capital had $73.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David Brown’s Hawk Ridge Management also initiated a $44.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Joshua Friedman and Mitchell Julis’s Canyon Capital Advisors, Michael A. Price and Amos Meron’s Empyrean Capital Partners, and Zach Schreiber’s Point State Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at MDU Resources Group Inc (NYSE:MDU), MGM Growth Properties LLC (NYSE:MGP), Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE:HBI), ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN), New York Community Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:NYCB), FIGS Inc. (NYSE:FIGS), and Leggett & Platt, Inc. (NYSE:LEG). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble AMBP’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $369 million. That figure was $400 million in AMBP’s case. Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE:HBI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A. (NYSE:AMBP) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AMBP is 65.7. 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 31.1% in 2021 through December 9th and beat the market again by 5.1 percentage points. Unfortunately AMBP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on AMBP were disappointed as the stock returned 7.1% since the end of September (through 12/9) 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.

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