Is Stag Industrial Inc (STAG) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Is Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG) undervalued? Investors who are in the know are turning bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets advanced by 2 recently.

In the financial world, there are many metrics market participants can use to monitor the equity markets. A duo of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite fund managers can beat the market by a superb margin (see just how much).

Just as important, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the world of equities. There are a number of incentives for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if you know where to look (learn more here).

Now, let’s take a peek at the recent action regarding Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG).

How have hedgies been trading Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 22% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, J. Alan Reid, Jr.’s Forward Management had the most valuable position in Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG), worth close to $47.8 million, comprising 2.9% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $11.3 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers that are bullish include Brian Taylor’s Pine River Capital Management, Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, assembled the largest position in Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG). Balyasny Asset Management had 1.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.3 million position during the quarter.

Insider trading activity in Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG)

Insider buying is at its handiest when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time period, Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG) has experienced 7 unique insiders buying, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Stag Industrial Inc (NYSE:STAG). These stocks are Sovran Self Storage Inc (NYSE:SSS), Potlatch Corporation (NASDAQ:PCH), First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR), Eastgroup Properties Inc (NYSE:EGP), and Monmouth R.E. Inv. Corp. (NYSE:MNR). This group of stocks belong to the reit – industrial industry and their market caps resemble STAG’s market cap.