Is Integer Holdings Corporation (ITGR) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

There are several ways to beat the market, and investing in small cap stocks has historically been one of them. We like to improve the odds of beating the market further by examining what famous hedge fund operators such as Carl Icahn and George Soros think. Those hedge fund operators make billions of dollars each year by hiring the best and the brightest to do research on stocks, including small cap stocks that big brokerage houses simply don’t cover. Because of Carl Icahn and other successful funds’ exemplary historical records, we pay attention to their small cap picks. In this article, we use hedge fund filing data to analyze Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR).

Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR) has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. ITGR was in 13 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with ITGR positions at the end of the previous quarter. 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 Blackstone / GSO Strategic Credit Fund (NYSE:BGB), Koppers Holdings Inc. (NYSE:KOP), and Novadaq Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:NVDQ) to gather more data points.

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How are hedge funds trading Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 13 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a boost of 8% from the previous quarter, though that comes after two quarters of sharp declines in hedge fund positions. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in ITGR over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

HedgeFundSentimentChart

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Fisher Asset Management, led by Ken Fisher, holds the biggest position in Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR). Fisher Asset Management has a $30 million position in the stock. On Fisher Asset Management’s heels is Millennium Management, founded by Israel Englander, which holds a $14.6 million position. Some other members of the smart money that are bullish encompass Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. 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.

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Fisher Asset Management initiated the most valuable position in Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR). Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management also initiated a $1.3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR) but similarly valued. These stocks are Blackstone / GSO Strategic Credit Fund (NYSE:BGB), Koppers Holdings Inc. (NYSE:KOP), Novadaq Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:NVDQ), and Eldorado Resorts Inc (NASDAQ:ERI). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to ITGR’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
BGB 5 60767 1
KOP 16 59414 2
NVDQ 9 81711 1
ERI 22 207294 0

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $102 million. That figure was $74 million in ITGR’s case. Eldorado Resorts Inc (NASDAQ:ERI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Blackstone / GSO Strategic Credit Fund (NYSE:BGB) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR) 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 ERI might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None