You probably know from experience that there is not as much information on small-cap companies as there is on large companies. Of course, this makes it really hard and difficult for individual investors to make proper and accurate analysis of certain small-cap companies. However, well-known and successful hedge fund investors like Carl Icahn and George Soros hold the necessary resources and abilities to conduct an extensive stock analysis on small-cap stocks, which enable them to make millions of dollars by identifying potential winners within the small-cap galaxy of stocks. This represents the main reason why Insider Monkey takes notice of the hedge fund activity in these overlooked stocks.
Hedge fund interest in Charles River Laboratories Intl. Inc (NYSE:CRL) shares was flat during the third 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 AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO), Gramercy Property Trust Inc (NYSE:GPT), and Elbit Systems Ltd. (USA) (NASDAQ:ESLT) to gather more data points.
Follow Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (NYSE:CRL)
Follow Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (NYSE:CRL)
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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What does the smart money think about Charles River Laboratories Intl. Inc (NYSE:CRL)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, unchanged from the second quarter of 2016. Between 25 and 28 hedge funds in our system have owned the stock over the past five quarters, an extremely narrow range. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, John W. Rogers’ Ariel Investments has the number one position in Charles River Laboratories Intl. Inc (NYSE:CRL), worth close to $118.9 million, corresponding to 1.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, with a $96 million position. Remaining professional money managers that are bullish include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.
