Hedge funds and other investment firms run by legendary investors like Israel Englander, Jeffrey Talpins and Ray Dalio are entrusted to manage billions of dollars of accredited investors’ money because they are without peer in the resources they use to identify the best investments for their chosen investment horizon. Moreover, they are more willing to invest a greater amount of their resources in small-cap stocks than big brokerage houses, and this is often where they generate their outperformance, which is why we pay particular attention to their best ideas in this space.
Is Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AIT) worth your attention right now? Investors who are in the know are in a pessimistic mood. The number of long hedge fund bets decreased by 4 recently. Our calculations also showed that ait isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Today there are many methods stock traders put to use to appraise publicly traded companies. Some of the less utilized methods are hedge fund and insider trading interest. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best investment managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see the details here).
We’re going to view the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AIT).
What have hedge funds been doing with Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AIT)?
Heading into the first quarter of 2019, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -17% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 18 hedge funds with a bullish position in AIT a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Adage Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AIT), with a stake worth $31.3 million reported as of the end of December. Trailing Adage Capital Management was Royce & Associates, which amassed a stake valued at $11.7 million. Carlson Capital, Millennium Management, and Renaissance Technologies were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
Seeing as Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AIT) has witnessed declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers who sold off their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Robert Polak’s Anchor Bolt Capital dumped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $8.2 million in stock, and Brandon Haley’s Holocene Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $0.6 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AIT). We will take a look at Evertec Inc (NYSE:EVTC), Sogou Inc. (NYSE:SOGO), Colliers International Group Inc (NASDAQ:CIGI), and Antero Midstream Corporation (NYSE:AMGP). This group of stocks’ market values match AIT’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| EVTC | 21 | 224095 | 1 |
| SOGO | 6 | 9668 | 0 |
| CIGI | 13 | 540066 | 2 |
| AMGP | 15 | 168765 | -2 |
| Average | 13.75 | 235649 | 0.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $236 million. That figure was $102 million in AIT’s case. Evertec Inc (NYSE:EVTC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sogou Inc. (NYSE:SOGO) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AIT) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on AIT, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 16.7% and outperformed the market as well.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
