At Holdings Channel, we have reviewed the latest batch of the 22 most recent 13F filings for the 06/30/2022 reporting period, and noticed that Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) was held by 11 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 ADP positions, for this latest batch of 13F filers:

In terms of shares owned, we count all 3 of the above funds having increased existing ADP positions from 03/31/2022 to 06/30/2022. Worth noting is that SWS Partners, included in this recent batch of 13F filers, exited ADP common stock as of 06/30/2022.

Looking beyond these particular funds in this one batch of most recent filers, we tallied up the ADP share count in the aggregate among all of the funds which held ADP at the 06/30/2022 reporting period (out of the 1,808 we looked at in total). We then compared that number to the sum total of ADP shares those same funds held back at the 03/31/2022 period, to see how the aggregate share count held by hedge funds has moved for ADP. We found that between these two periods, funds reduced their holdings by 214,884 shares in the aggregate, from 16,817,942 down to 16,603,058 for a share count decline of approximately -1.28%. The overall top three funds holding ADP on 06/30/2022 were: