The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey have plowed through 823 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 June 30th, when the S&P 500 Index was trading around the 3100 level. Since the end of March, investors decided to bet on the economic recovery and a stock market rebound. S&P 500 Index returned more than 50% since its bottom. In this article you are going to find out whether hedge funds thought Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO) was a good investment heading into the third quarter and how the stock traded in comparison to the top hedge fund picks.
Is Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Prominent investors were getting more optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 12 lately. Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO) was in 51 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2020. This is the new all time high for this statistics. Our calculations also showed that QRVO isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
If you'd ask most stock holders, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, outdated investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation today, We choose to focus on the elite of this group, around 850 funds. These hedge fund managers command the lion's share of the smart money's total capital, and by paying attention to their inimitable equity investments, Insider Monkey has formulated various investment strategies that have historically exceeded the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey's flagship short hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 34% since February 2017 (through August 17th) even though the market was up 53% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Harold Levy Iridian Asset Management
Harold Levy of Iridian Asset Management
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost precious metals prices. So, we are checking out this junior gold mining stock.. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in America to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. Now we're going to analyze the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO).
How have hedgies been trading Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO)?
Heading into the third quarter of 2020, a total of 51 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 31% from the first quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in QRVO over the last 20 quarters. So, let's review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Baupost Group was the largest shareholder of Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO), with a stake worth $338.8 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Baupost Group was AQR Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $203.4 million. Iridian Asset Management, Fisher Asset Management, and Citadel 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 Shelter Haven Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO), around 7.73% of its 13F portfolio. Bronson Point Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 5.44 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to QRVO.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds have jumped into Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO) headfirst. Jericho Capital Asset Management, managed by Josh Resnick, created the most outsized position in Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO). Jericho Capital Asset Management had $73.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dmitry Balyasny's Balyasny Asset Management also made a $53.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Michael Rockefeller and KarláKroeker's Woodline Partners, John Hurley's Cavalry Asset Management, and Jerry Kochanski's Shelter Haven Capital Management.
Let's now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Etsy Inc (NASDAQ:ETSY), Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC), Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (NYSE:HPE), Grifols SA (NASDAQ:GRFS), Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE), and FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS). All of these stocks' market caps are similar to QRVO's market cap.
[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position ETSY,43,1727421,5 GPC,20,144284,-2 SRPT,39,1148135,6 HPE,31,693633,2 GRFS,21,583023,-2 NUE,26,115702,0 FDS,21,200608,0 Average,28.7,658972,1.3 [/table]
As you can see these stocks had an average of 28.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $659 million. That figure was $1609 million in QRVO's case. Etsy Inc (NASDAQ:ETSY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Qorvo Inc (NASDAQ:QRVO) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for QRVO is 86.4. 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 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 33% in 2020 through the end of August and still managed to beat the market by 23.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on QRVO, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 16% since the end of June and outperformed the market as well.
