Is UDR, Inc. (UDR) A Good Stock To Buy?

After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from the more than 700 13F filings issued by the successful hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of September 30. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR) .

Is UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR) worth your attention right now? The smart money is getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets improved by 1 lately. UDR was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with UDR holdings 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 Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT), Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), and WestRock Co (NYSE:WRK) to gather more data points.

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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With all of this in mind, we’re going to check out the latest action surrounding UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR).

What does the smart money think about UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, an increase of 8% from the second quarter of 2016. On the other hand, there were a total of 10 hedge funds with a bullish position in UDR at the beginning of this year. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Renaissance Technologies, founded by Jim Simons, holds the number one position in UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR). Renaissance Technologies has a $89.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Dmitry Balyasny of Balyasny Asset Management, with a $23.5 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers with similar optimism encompass Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors. 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 aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Highbridge Capital Management, led by Glenn Russell Dubin, assembled the largest position in UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR). Highbridge Capital Management had $2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management also initiated a $0.9 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock is D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR). We will take a look at Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT), Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), WestRock Co (NYSE:WRK), and Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to UDR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 26 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $583 million. That figure was $151 million in UDR’s case. Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR) is even less popular than TXT. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: None