Visa Inc (NYSE:V) is another stock that has witnessed hedge funds retracting their positions during the third quarter, according to the data from hedge funds-tracking website Insider Monkey. At the end of September, a total of 80 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on the stock, down by 2% from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment declining, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes substantially, such as Ken Fisher and Eric W. Mandelblatt.
Insider Monkey has a relatively simple strategy for picking investment opportunities. Most traders perceive hedge funds as worthless and old financial tools.However, there are over 8,000 functioning hedge funds and hedge fund experts at Insider Monkey choose to focus on some of the best of them, by tracking the activity of around 700 funds. According to some estimates, this group of people control most of the smart money’s total capital. In this way, by keeping track of their matchless equity investments, Insider Monkey has determined a bunch of investment strategies that have historically beaten the market by an impressive margin, such as their small-cap hedge fund strategy, which surpassed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for around a decade.
How have hedgies been trading Visa Inc (NYSE:V)?
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management had the biggest position in Visa Inc (NYSE:V), worth close to $765.8 million, comprising 1.6% of its total equity portfolio. Coming in second is Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global, with a $647.7 million position, equal to 2.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions include Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, John H. Scully’s SPO Advisory Corp and Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management.
Since Visa Inc (NYSE:V) has experienced a decline in interest from the hedge fund industry, the logic holds that there were a few money managers that sold out their entire stakes. Intriguingly, Eric W. Mandelblatt’s Soroban Capital Partners closed the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, previously holding $105.4 million in stock, and John Armitage of Egerton Capital Limited was right behind Soroban, as it cut a position that was valued at $62.3 million. These moves are interesting to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds heading into the fourth quarter.
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