At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 750 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of December 31. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN) makes for a good investment right now.
Is Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN) a buy, sell, or hold? Money managers are turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 4 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that mtrn isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are dozens of methods investors can use to value stocks. A pair of the less utilized methods are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite hedge fund managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a healthy amount (see the details here).
Let’s take a look at the recent hedge fund action surrounding Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN).
How are hedge funds trading Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 31% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 13 hedge funds with a bullish position in MTRN a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN) was held by GAMCO Investors, which reported holding $27.7 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by GLG Partners with a $8.6 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Renaissance Technologies, Millennium Management, and Winton Capital Management.
Now, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, created the biggest position in Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN). Fisher Asset Management had $3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital also initiated a $2.2 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new MTRN investors: Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, and Minhua Zhang’s Weld Capital Management.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Carbon Black, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBLK), Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD), Intrexon Corp (NASDAQ:XON), and C&J Energy Services, Inc (NYSE:CJ). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to MTRN’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBLK | 17 | 46776 | 8 |
| BOLD | 24 | 349589 | 7 |
| XON | 10 | 29347 | 1 |
| CJ | 25 | 254818 | 0 |
| Average | 19 | 170133 | 4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 19 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $170 million. That figure was $82 million in MTRN’s case. C&J Energy Services, Inc (NYSE:CJ) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Intrexon Corp (NASDAQ:XON) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on MTRN as the stock returned 30.3% and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
