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See Which Of The Latest 13F Filers Holds Discover Financial Services

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At Holdings Channel, we have reviewed the latest batch of the 67 most recent 13F filings for the 12/31/2020 reporting period, and noticed that Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) was held by 15 of these funds. When hedge fund managers appear to be thinking alike, we find it is a good idea to take a closer look.

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Before we proceed, it is important to point out that 13F filings do not tell the whole story, because these funds are only required to disclose their long positions with the SEC, but are not required to disclose their short positions. A fund making a bearish bet against a stock by shorting calls, for example, might also be long some amount of stock as they trade around their overall bearish position. This long component could show up in a 13F filing and everyone might assume the fund is bullish, but this tells only part of the story because the bearish/short side of the position is not seen.

Having given that caveat, we believe that looking at groups of 13F filings can be revealing, especially when comparing one holding period to another. Below, let's take a look at the change in DFS positions, for this latest batch of 13F filers:

In terms of shares owned, we count 1 of the above funds having increased existing DFS positions from 09/30/2020 to 12/31/2020, with 6 having decreased their positions and 8 new positions. Worth noting is that Atom Investors LP, and MKP Capital Management L.L.C., included in this recent batch of 13F filers, exited DFS common stock as of 12/31/2020.

Looking beyond these particular funds in this one batch of most recent filers, we tallied up the DFS share count in the aggregate among all of the funds which held DFS at the 12/31/2020 reporting period (out of the 4,106 we looked at in total). We then compared that number to the sum total of DFS shares those same funds held back at the 09/30/2020 period, to see how the aggregate share count held by hedge funds has moved for DFS. We found that between these two periods, funds increased their holdings by 4,261,977 shares in the aggregate, from 192,973,434 up to 197,235,411 for a share count increase of approximately 2.21%. The overall top three funds holding DFS on 12/31/2020 were:

We'll keep following the latest 13F filings by hedge fund managers and bring you interesting stories derived from a look at the aggregate information across groups of managers between filing periods. While looking at individual 13F filings can sometimes be misleading due to the long-only nature of the information, the sum total across groups of funds from one reporting period to another can be a lot more revealing and relevant, providing interesting stock ideas that merit further research, like Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS).

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