Should You Buy Nordson Corporation (NDSN)?

The worries about the economic slowdown in China and the ongoing uncertainty about the path of interest-rate increases triggered several waves of equity sell-offs during the third quarter. Of course, most hedge funds and other asset managers had to stomach substantial losses during the bloody three-month period, which might have caused some to consider fleeing the U.S. equity markets. Interestingly, smaller-cap stocks registered higher losses than large-capitalization stocks during the September quarter, suggesting that institutional investors heavily discarded seemingly riskier equities amid high uncertainty and turmoil. In fact, the Russell 2000 Index lost 11.9% in the third quarter, while the Standard and Poor’s 500 benchmark declined a mere 6.4%. This article will lay out and discuss the hedge fund and institutional investor sentiment towards Nordson Corporation (NASDAQ:NDSN).

Nordson Corporation (NASDAQ:NDSN) has seen an increase in enthusiasm from smart money of late. At the end of this article we will also compare NDSN to other stocks, including DST Systems, Inc. (NYSE:DST), MSC Industrial Direct Co Inc (NYSE:MSM), and Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNK) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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Now, we’re going to analyze the latest action encompassing Nordson Corporation (NASDAQ:NDSN).

How are hedge funds trading Nordson Corporation (NASDAQ:NDSN)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a surge of 70% from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates has the most valuable position in Nordson Corporation (NASDAQ:NDSN), worth close to $30.1 million, corresponding to 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Echo Street Capital Management, managed by Greg Poole, which holds a $14.9 million stake; the fund has 0.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers that hold long positions include Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick’s First Pacific Advisors LLC, Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. and Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors.