Is Dillard’s, Inc. (DDS) A Good Stock To Buy?

As aggregate interest increased, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, created the most outsized position in Dillard’s, Inc. (NYSE:DDS). Royce & Associates had $54.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Tompkins’s Tyvor Capital also made an $7.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new DDS positions are D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, and George Hall’s Clinton Group.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Dillard’s, Inc. (NYSE:DDS) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Kirby Corporation (NYSE:KEX), Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML), Sovran Self Storage Inc (NYSE:SSS), and Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK). This group of stocks’ market caps match DDS’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $523 million. That figure was $321 million in DDS’s case. Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sovran Self Storage Inc (NYSE:SSS) is the least popular one with only 19 bullish hedge fund positions. Dillard’s, Inc. (NYSE:DDS) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard QLIK might be a better candidate to consider a long position.