Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Investors Bancorp, Inc. (ISBC)

Before putting in our own effort and resources into finding a good investment, we can quickly utilize hedge fund expertise to give us a quick glimpse of whether that stock could make for a good addition to our portfolios. The odds are not exactly stacked in investors’ favor when it comes to beating the market, as evidenced by the fact that less than 49% of the stocks in the S&P 500 did so during the 12-month period ending October 30. However, 63% of hedge funds’ top 30 stock picks from the index did beat the market, and returned nearly twice as much on average as the index. Thus, we can see that the tireless research and efforts of hedge funds to identify winning stocks can work to our advantage when we know how to use the data. While not all of their picks will be winners, our odds are much better following their best stock picks than trying to go it alone.

Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. ISBC was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 34 hedge funds in our database with ISBC positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as King Digital Entertainment PLC (NYSE:KING), Orbital ATK Inc (NYSE:OA), and ICON plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:ICLR) to gather more data points.

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the fresh action regarding Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC).

Hedge fund activity in Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC)

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -24% from the second quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Blue Harbour Group, managed by Clifton S. Robbins, holds the most valuable position in Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC). Blue Harbour Group has a $352.6 million position in the stock, comprising 11% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Empyrean Capital Partners, led by Michael A. Price and Amos Meron, holding a $110.9 million position; 5.5% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other members of the smart money with similar optimism encompass Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, Emanuel J. Friedman’s EJF Capital and Lee Munder’s Lee Munder Capital Group.