Hedge Funds Are Nibbling On Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA)
After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms' equity portfolios as of March 31st. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA).
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) has seen an increase in activity from the world's largest hedge funds in recent months. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) was in 41 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 91. There were 36 hedge funds in our database with WBA positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that WBA isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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Ole Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global
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Do Hedge Funds Think WBA Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 41 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 14% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards WBA over the last 23 quarters. So, let's find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) was held by Camber Capital Management, which reported holding $205.9 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Antipodes Partners with a $120.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Eminence Capital, Citadel Investment Group, and Viking Global. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Tri Locum Partners allocated the biggest weight to Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA), around 10.48% of its 13F portfolio. Camber Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 7.06 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to WBA.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Eminence Capital, managed by Ricky Sandler, assembled the most valuable position in Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA). Eminence Capital had $110.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global also made a $94.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Larry Robbins's Glenview Capital, Prashanth Jayaram's Tri Locum Partners, and Benjamin A. Smith's Laurion Capital Management.
Let's go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA). We will take a look at Kimberly Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB), Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), Rocket Companies, Inc. (NYSE:RKT), Carvana Co. (NYSE:CVNA), América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:AMX), and TC Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP). This group of stocks' market values are similar to WBA's market value.
[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position KMB,31,1287433,-6 PINS,83,4189031,-12 LVS,62,2441021,-1 RKT,21,208014,5 CVNA,64,7536279,1 AMX,15,93823,-1 TRP,25,429089,6 Average,43,2312099,-1.1 [/table]
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 43 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2312 million. That figure was $1133 million in WBA's case. Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand America América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:AMX) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for WBA is 42.6. 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 17.4% in 2021 through June 18th and surpassed the market again by 6.1 percentage points. Unfortunately WBA wasn't nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); WBA investors were disappointed as the stock returned -6.6% since the end of March (through 6/18) 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.
