ICU Medical, Incorporated (ICUI): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Hedge funds and other investment firms that we track manage billions of dollars of their wealthy clients’ money, and needless to say, they are painstakingly thorough when analyzing where to invest this money, as their own wealth depends on it. Regardless of the various methods used by elite investors like David Tepper and Dan Loeb, the resources they expend are second-to-none. This is especially valuable when it comes to small-cap stocks, which is where they generate their strongest outperformance, as their resources give them a huge edge when it comes to studying these stocks compared to the average investor, which is why we intently follow their activity in the small-cap space.

Is ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI) going to take off soon? Investors who are in the know are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund bets dropped by 2 in recent months. 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 EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS), DeVry Education Group Inc (NYSE:DV), and Worthington Industries, Inc. (NYSE:WOR) to gather more data points.

Today there are a multitude of formulas shareholders use to assess publicly traded companies. Two of the less known formulas are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can outpace the S&P 500 by a healthy amount (see the details here).

Now, we’re going to take a peek at the key action surrounding ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI).

How are hedge funds trading ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a drop of 11% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies holds the most valuable position in ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI). Renaissance Technologies has a $83.5 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’ heels is Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, which holds a $17.4 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish encompass Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, D E Shaw, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Due to the fact that ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI) has faced a declination in interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of fund managers that decided to sell off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Justin John Ferayorni’s Tamarack Capital Management cut the largest stake of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth close to $10.1 million in stock. Robert Joseph Caruso’s fund, Select Equity Group, also dropped its stock, about $9.4 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI). We will take a look at EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS), DeVry Education Group Inc (NYSE:DV), Worthington Industries, Inc. (NYSE:WOR), and South Jersey Industries Inc (NYSE:SJI). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI)’s market cap.

As you can see, these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $207 million. That figure was $178 million in ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI)’s case. EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand, South Jersey Industries Inc (NYSE:SJI) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI) 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, EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.