Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Beyond Meat, Inc. (BYND)?

Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of September. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 900 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.

Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund sentiment recently. Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 29. Our calculations also showed that BYND isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can’t expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds’ moves today.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, economists warn of inflation flare up. So, we are checking out this backdoor gold play that has hit peak gains of 718% in a little over a year. We go through lists like the 10 best battery 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. 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. Now we’re going to review the new hedge fund action surrounding Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND).

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -4% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 13 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BYND a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Citadel Investment Group was the largest shareholder of Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND), with a stake worth $88.4 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Citadel Investment Group was Citadel Investment Group, which amassed a stake valued at $86.3 million. Keywise Capital Management, Renaissance Technologies, and OZ Management 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 Keywise Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND), around 15.64% of its 13F portfolio. OZ Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.37 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BYND.

Judging by the fact that Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few hedge funds who were dropping their positions entirely by the end of the first quarter. Interestingly, Nancy Zevenbergen’s Zevenbergen Capital Investments dumped the largest stake of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $43.4 million in stock, and Chet Kapoor’s Tenzing Global Investors was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $5.9 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds by the end of the first quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND) but similarly valued. These stocks are Polaris Inc. (NYSE:PII), Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC), CyrusOne Inc (NASDAQ:CONE), AerCap Holdings N.V. (NYSE:AER), First Citizens BancShares Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA), Encompass Health Corporation (NYSE:EHC), and Kimco Realty Corp (NYSE:KIM). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to BYND’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $572 million. That figure was $339 million in BYND’s case. AerCap Holdings N.V. (NYSE:AER) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for BYND is 50.5. 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 negative signal and 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 24% in 2021 through July 9th and surpassed the market again by 6.7 percentage points. Unfortunately BYND wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); BYND investors were disappointed as the stock returned 7.8% since the end of March (through 7/9) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.

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