Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (HVT)

The government requires hedge funds and wealthy investors with over a certain portfolio size to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings discloses the funds’ positions on September 30. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 700 of those elite funds and prominent investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) based on those filings.

Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment recently. HVT was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with HVT positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare HVT to other stocks, including Unifi, Inc. (NYSE:UFI), Blackrock Muni Intermediate Drtn Fnd Inc (NYSE:MUI), and Epizyme Inc (NASDAQ:EPZM) to get a better sense of its popularity.

To the average investor there are tons of signals market participants can use to appraise their stock investments. Some of the less utilized signals are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite fund managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a superb amount (see the details here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a glance at the new action surrounding Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT).

Hedge fund activity in Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT)

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 9% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates has the largest position in Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT), worth close to $34.9 million, comprising 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Renaissance Technologies, with a $25.5 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 encompass Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Consequently, specific money managers have jumped into Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) headfirst. Nine Chapters Capital Management, managed by Chao Ku, established the most valuable position in Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT). Nine Chapters Capital Management had $0.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) but similarly valued. These stocks are Unifi, Inc. (NYSE:UFI), Blackrock Muni Intermediate Drtn Fnd Inc (NYSE:MUI), Epizyme Inc (NASDAQ:EPZM), and Natera Inc (NASDAQ:NTRA). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble HVT’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $44 million. That figure was $73 million in HVT’s case. Epizyme Inc (NASDAQ:EPZM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Blackrock Muni Intermediate Drtn Fnd Inc (NYSE:MUI) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) 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 EPZM might be a better candidate to consider a long position.