Caesars Acquisition Company (CACQ): What Smart Money Thinks about This Stock?

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge funds have been producing disappointing net returns in recent years, however that was partly due to the poor performance of small-cap stocks in general. Well, small-cap stocks finally turned the corner and have been beating the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points over the last 5 months.This means the relevancy of hedge funds’ public filings became inarguable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ) .

Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ) was included in the 13F portfolios of 17 funds tracked by Insider Monkey at the end of September. The company saw an increase in hedge fund interest in the third quarter, since there had been 13 funds long the stock a quarter earlier. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Mobile Mini Inc (NASDAQ:MINI), Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SSRI), and Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC) to gather more data points.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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Now, we’re going to analyze the fresh action regarding Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ).

What does the smart money think about Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ)?

A total of 17 funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ), which represents an increase of 31% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CACQ over the last five quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, John Paulson’s Paulson & Co has the most valuable position in Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ), worth close to $162.9 million, amounting to 1.8% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by George Soros’ Soros Fund Management holding a $80.9 million position; the fund has 2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money that are bullish comprise Matthew Knauer and Mina Faltas’s Nokota Management, Joshua Friedman and Mitchell Julis’s Canyon Capital Advisors and Jose Fernandez’s Stepstone Group. We should note that Soros Fund Management is among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Consequently, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Empyrean Capital Partners, led by Michael A. Price and Amos Meron, assembled the most valuable position in Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ). Empyrean Capital Partners had $4.8 million invested in the company at the end of the third quarter. Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin’s Senator Investment Group also initiated a $1.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new CACQ positions are Charles Davidson’s Wexford Capital, Thomas Ellis and Todd Hammer’s North Run Capital, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ). We will take a look at Mobile Mini Inc (NASDAQ:MINI), Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SSRI), Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC), and 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to CACQ’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13 funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $117 million at the end of September, compared to $374 million in CACQ’s case. Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Mobile Mini Inc (NASDAQ:MINI) is the least popular one with only eight investors holding shares. Caesars Acquisition Company (NASDAQ:CACQ) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC) might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.