Reputable billionaire investors such as Nelson Peltz and David Tepper generate exorbitant profits for their wealthy accredited investors (a minimum of $1 million in investable assets would be required to invest in a hedge fund and most successful hedge funds won’t accept your savings unless you commit at least $5 million) by pinpointing winning small-cap stocks. There is little or no publicly-available information at all on some of these small companies, which makes it hard for an individual investor to pin down a winner within the small-cap space. However, hedge funds and other big asset managers can do the due diligence and analysis for you instead, thanks to their highly-skilled research teams and vast resources to conduct an appropriate evaluation process. Looking for potential winners within the small-cap galaxy of stocks? We believe following the smart money is a good starting point.
Hedge fund interest in Vectren Corporation (NYSE:VVC) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. 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 Randgold Resources Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:GOLD), Life Storage Inc (NYSE:LSI), and Manhattan Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:MANH) to gather more data points.
Follow Vectren Corp (NYSE:VVC)
Follow Vectren Corp (NYSE:VVC)
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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With all of this in mind, let’s view the recent action encompassing Vectren Corporation (NYSE:VVC).
What does the smart money think about Vectren Corporation (NYSE:VVC)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, unchanged from the last quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards VVC over the last 5 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, founded by Jim Simons, holds the biggest position in Vectren Corporation (NYSE:VVC). Renaissance Technologies has a $46.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, with a $36.5 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers with similar optimism consist of D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
