Cirrus Logic, Inc. (CRUS): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

It seems that the masses and most of the financial media hate hedge funds and what they do, but why is this hatred of hedge funds so prominent? At the end of the day, these asset management firms do not gamble the hard-earned money of the people who are on the edge of poverty. Truth be told, most hedge fund managers and other smaller players within this industry are very smart and skilled investors. Of course, they may also make wrong bets in some instances, but no one knows what the future holds and how market participants will react to the bountiful news that floods in each day. The S&P 500 Index gained 7.6% in the 12 month-period that ended November 21, while less than 49% of its stocks beat the benchmark. In contrast, the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks among the top hedge fund investors tracked by the Insider Monkey team returned 18% over the same period, which provides evidence that these money managers do have great stock picking abilities. That’s why we believe it isn’t a waste of time to check out hedge fund sentiment before you invest in a stock like Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS) .

Is Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS) a cheap investment now? Hedge funds are definitely taking a bullish view. The number of long hedge fund investments swelled by 1 in recent months. CRUSwas in 28 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 27 hedge funds in our database with CRUS holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare CRUS to other stocks including Southwest Gas Corporation (NYSE:SWX), Nortel Inversora S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:NTL), and Intrexon Corp (NYSE:XON) to get a better sense of its popularity.

We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year, involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs.

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Now, we’re going to take a look at the latest action surrounding Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS).

What does the smart money think about Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 28 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, an increase of 4% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 24 hedge funds with a bullish position in CRUS at the beginning of this year. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Christopher James’s Partner Fund Management has the number one position in Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS), worth close to $29.4 million, comprising 0.9% of its total 13F portfolio. On Partner Fund Management’s heels is Alex Sacerdote of Whale Rock Capital Management, with a $29 million position; 1.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other peers that hold long positions consist of Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw. We should note that Whale Rock Capital 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.