Do Hedge Funds Love Astec Industries, Inc. (ASTE)?

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) .

Is Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) ready to rally soon? Investors who are in the know are really in an optimistic mood. The number of bullish hedge fund bets that are revealed through the 13F filings increased by 1 in recent months. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with ASTE holdings at the end of the third quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare ASTE to other stocks including Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated (NASDAQ:COKE), Global Net Lease Inc (NYSE:GNL), and Ship Finance International Limited (NYSE:SFL) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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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With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at the recent action surrounding Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE).

What have hedge funds been doing with Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 16 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, up 7% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ASTE over the last 5 quarters. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors has the number one position in Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE), worth close to $72.8 million, comprising 0.5% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Royce & Associates, led by Chuck Royce, holding a $20.4 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions consist of Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Principal Global Investors’s Columbus Circle Investors and Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital. We should note that none of these hedge funds are 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.

As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. G2 Investment Partners Management, led by Josh Goldberg, established the most valuable position in Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE). According to its latest 13F filing, the fund had $0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp also initiated a $0.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ASTE positions are John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated (NASDAQ:COKE), Global Net Lease Inc(NYSE:GNL), Ship Finance International Limited (NYSE:SFL), and Chesapeake Lodging Trust (NYSE:CHSP). This group of stocks’ market valuations match ASTE’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $21 million. That figure was $126 million in ASTE’s case. Chesapeake Lodging Trust (NYSE:CHSP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated (NASDAQ:COKE) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.

Disclosure: none.