Hedge funds don’t always live up to their high fees and hype, but it’s worth keeping tabs on what they’re doing nonetheless. After all, they comprise a large swath of institutional investor dollars. They’re the supposed “smart money,” and often act like it. It matters what they buy, sell and hold.
As the good folks at WalletHub note, the 50 largest U.S.-based hedge funds alone hold more than $6 trillion in assets. What they’re doing with those assets certainly is interesting, and perhaps even instructive.
Helpfully, WalletHub did a deep dive into which U.S. stocks are most popular with U.S. hedge funds. Combing through regulatory filings, they looked at the positions of more than 400 hedge funds, added up the positions for the same stock, then rank-ordered the stocks by their total holdings value.
Spoiler alert: Every one of these companies is massive by market value. Indeed, they would have to be to accommodate so much institutional interest. It also should come as no surprise that they are all household names.
Here’s a look at the 10 highest-rank hedge-fund stock picks. Not every one of the following stocks is necessarily a buy at current prices, but there are certainly no dogs in the group. In other words, it’s not hard to see why these stocks are the ones hedge funds love the most.
SEE ALSO: 20 of the Best Stocks You Probably Haven’t Heard Of
Data is as of Feb. 27, 2018. Companies are listed in order of popularity with hedge funds. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent quarterly payout and dividing by the share price. Analysts’ ratings provided by Zacks Investment Research. Click on ticker-symbol links in each slide for current share prices and more.
