We started seeing tectonic shifts in the market during the third quarter. Small-cap stocks underperformed the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points between the end of June 2015 and the end of June 2016. A mean reversion in trends bumped small-cap stocks’ return to almost 9% in Q3, outperforming their large-cap peers by 5 percentage points. The momentum in small-cap space hasn’t subsided during this quarter either. Small-cap stocks beat large-cap stocks by another 5 percentage points during the first 7 weeks of this quarter. Hedge funds and institutional investors tracked by Insider Monkey usually invest a disproportionate amount of their portfolios in smaller cap stocks. We have been receiving indications that hedge funds were boosting their overall exposure and this is one of the factors behind the recent movements in major indices. In this article, we will take a closer look at hedge fund sentiment towards TAL Education Group (ADR) (NYSE:XRS).
TAL Education Group (ADR) (NYSE:XRS) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money recently. XRS was in 24 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with XRS holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare XRS to other stocks including Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI), Edgewell Personal Care Company (NYSE:EPC), and Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Tal Education Group (NYSE:TAL)
Follow Tal Education Group (NYSE:TAL)
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How have hedgies been trading TAL Education Group (ADR) (NYSE:XRS)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 24 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a 60% jump from the previous quarter. Hedge funds now own 4.70% of TAL Education’s float. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Serenity Capital, managed by Wang Chen, holds the number one position in TAL Education Group (ADR) (NYSE:XRS). Serenity Capital has a $71.8 million position in the stock, comprising 23.6% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Ariose Capital, managed by Yi Xin, which holds a $65.1 million position; 17.8% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other members of the smart money that are bullish comprise Lei Zhang’s Hillhouse Capital Management, Jeffrey Altman’s Owl Creek Asset Management, and Larry Chen and Terry Zhang’s Tairen Capital.
