GATX Corporation (GMT), AMERCO (UHAL): Hedge Funds Are Buying Air Lease Corp (AL)

Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL) has seen an increase in hedge fund interest recently.

In today’s marketplace, there are a multitude of gauges investors can use to track publicly traded companies. A couple of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top hedge fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Just as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are lots of incentives for an upper level exec to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).

Consequently, let’s take a look at the recent action regarding Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL).

What have hedge funds been doing with Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL)?

At year’s end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 50% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

Of the funds we track, Wilbur Ross’s Invesco Private Capital (WL Ross) had the biggest position in Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL), worth close to $91.4 million, comprising 8.5% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Osterweis Capital Management, managed by John Osterweis, which held a $70.8 million position; 3.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other peers that are bullish include Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Murray Stahl’s Horizon Asset Management and Joe DiMenna’s ZWEIG DIMENNA PARTNERS.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have jumped into Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL) headfirst. ZWEIG DIMENNA PARTNERS, managed by Joe DiMenna, created the biggest position in Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL). ZWEIG DIMENNA PARTNERS had 14.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors also made a $0.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new AL investors: John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

How are insiders trading Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL)?

Insider buying is at its handiest when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time period, Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL) has seen 1 unique insiders purchasing, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL). These stocks are GATX Corporation (NYSE:GMT), AMERCO (NASDAQ:UHAL), Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R), , and Avis Budget Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CAR). This group of stocks are in the rental & leasing services industry and their market caps resemble AL’s market cap.