Here is What Hedge Funds Think About C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (CHRW)

The worries about the economic slowdown in China and the ongoing uncertainty about the path of interest-rate increases triggered several waves of equity sell-offs during the third quarter. Of course, most hedge funds and other asset managers had to stomach substantial losses during the bloody three-month period, which might have caused some to consider fleeing the U.S. equity markets. Interestingly, smaller-cap stocks registered higher losses than large-capitalization stocks during the September quarter, suggesting that institutional investors heavily discarded seemingly riskier equities amid high uncertainty and turmoil. In fact, the Russell 2000 Index lost 11.9% in the third quarter, while the Standard and Poor’s 500 benchmark declined a mere 6.4%. This article will lay out and discuss the hedge fund and institutional investor sentiment towards C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW).

C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) was in 24 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2015. CHRW has experienced an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 21 hedge funds in our database with CHRW positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare CHRW to other stocks including Autoliv Inc. (NYSE:ALV), IMS Health Holdings Inc (NYSE:IMS), and Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (NASDAQ:MXIM) to get a better sense of its popularity.

If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are perceived as worthless, old financial tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, Our researchers choose to focus on the aristocrats of this club, around 700 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people watch over bulk of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by tracking their first-class picks, Insider Monkey has found a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s small-cap hedge fund strategy exceeded the S&P 500 index by 12 percentage points a year for a decade in their back tests.

With all of this in mind, we’re going to view the new action surrounding C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW).

How are hedge funds trading C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 14% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Donald Yacktman’s Yacktman Asset Management has the largest position in C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW), worth close to $337.7 million, accounting for 2.2% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Citadel Investment Group, led by Ken Griffin, holding a $125.2 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining professional money managers with similar optimism include Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have jumped into C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) headfirst. Scopus Asset Management, managed by Alexander Mitchell, established the most valuable position in C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW). Scopus Asset Management had $24.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. James Dondero’s Highland Capital Management also made a $4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are John Fichthorn’s Dialectic Capital Management, Israel Englander’s Catapult Capital Management, and Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Autoliv Inc. (NYSE:ALV), IMS Health Holdings Inc (NYSE:IMS), Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (NASDAQ:MXIM), and Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR). All of these stocks’ market caps match CHRW’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $394 million. That figure was $785 million in CHRW’s case. IMS Health Holdings Inc (NYSE:IMS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Autoliv Inc. (NYSE:ALV) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRW) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard IMS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.