Is Brixmor Property Group Inc (BRX) A Good Stock To Buy?

Nina Todic

Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 7:00 PM

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds' and successful investors' positions as of the end of the second quarter. You can find write-ups about an individual hedge fund's trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves and analyze what the smart money thinks of Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) based on that data.

Is Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) a buy, sell, or hold? Prominent investors are in an optimistic mood. The number of bullish hedge fund bets went up by 3 lately. Our calculations also showed that BRX isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. BRX was in 15 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2019. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with BRX positions at the end of the previous quarter.

According to most shareholders, hedge funds are seen as underperforming, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at present, Our researchers hone in on the upper echelon of this group, about 750 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors handle bulk of the hedge fund industry's total asset base, and by following their highest performing stock picks, Insider Monkey has spotted numerous investment strategies that have historically defeated the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey's flagship hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points per year since its inception in May 2014. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 25.7% since February 2017 (through September 30th) even though the market was up more than 33% during the same period. We just shared a list of 10 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Unlike some fund managers who are betting on Dow reaching 40000 in a year, our long-short investment strategy doesn't rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. We're going to check out the new hedge fund action encompassing Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX).

What have hedge funds been doing with Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX)?

At Q2's end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 25% from the first quarter of 2019. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards BRX over the last 16 quarters. With hedge funds' sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX), with a stake worth $77.6 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was D E Shaw, which amassed a stake valued at $9.2 million. AQR Capital Management, Two Sigma Advisors, and Carlson Capital were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.

As one would reasonably expect, specific money managers have jumped into Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) headfirst. Carlson Capital, managed by Clint Carlson, created the largest position in Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX). Carlson Capital had $7.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. J. Alan Reid, Jr.'s Forward Management also made a $1.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new BRX positions are Steve Cohen's Point72 Asset Management, Michael Gelband's ExodusPoint Capital, and Israel Englander's Millennium Management.

Let's check out hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Bilibili Inc. (NASDAQ:BILI), Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP), PLDT Inc. (NYSE:PHI), and Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE:CW). This group of stocks' market caps match BRX's market cap.

[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position BILI,23,497371,1 HP,33,320690,2 PHI,5,78595,0 CW,19,442818,-2 Average,20,334869,0.25 [/table]

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $335 million. That figure was $120 million in BRX's case. Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand PLDT Inc. (NYSE:PHI) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Brixmor Property Group Inc (NYSE:BRX) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks (view the video below) among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on BRX as the stock returned 15.3% during the same time frame and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.