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Institutional Investors Favored Financial Stocks Last Quarter
Where were institutional investors putting their money at the end of the last quarter? Mostly into financial stocks, according to the latest 13F filings.
Institutional investors entered the new year heavily emphasizing financial stocks. Seven of the 15 stocks most overweighted by these large investors were in this sector as of December 30, according to a quarterly analysis of regulatory filings by the quantitative research team at Credit Suisse Group.
Good move. Through early March, the S&P 500 financials sector index was up more than 11 percent compared with 6.8 percent for the S&P 500.
In its quarterly analysis of the 13F filings from year-end, Credit Suisse found three stocks were added to the top 15 list — Google, BlackRock, and The TJX Companies. They replaced Amazon.com, Allergan and VF Corp.
Interestingly, the same four stocks were the most over-weighted by institutions at the end of the fourth quarter as well as the third quarter.
An active weight is taken when the weight of a stock within the aggregate institutional portfolio differs from the weighting of the stock in the S&P 500, Credit Suisse explains. Overweighted stocks have a greater weight in the institutional portfolio than in the S&P 500 benchmark.
Here are the 15 most overweighted stocks by institutional investors on December 30.