The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest recently.
In the financial world, there are tons of methods market participants can use to watch Mr. Market. A couple of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite fund managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a solid margin (see just how much).
Equally as beneficial, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to break down the investments you’re interested in. There are many incentives for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).
With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a peek at the recent action surrounding The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD).
How have hedgies been trading The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD)?
Heading into Q2, a total of 50 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 2% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially.
According to our comprehensive database, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management had the largest position in The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD), worth close to $564 million, accounting for 1.5% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, which held a $297.2 million position; the fund has 0.7% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds with similar optimism include Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and Jason Capello’s Merchants’ Gate Capital.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Maverick Capital, managed by Lee Ainslie, assembled the most outsized position in The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD). Maverick Capital had 119.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management also initiated a $36 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new HD investors: George Soros’s Soros Fund Management, Brian Taylor’s Pine River Capital Management, and Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital.
Insider trading activity in The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD)
Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest 180-day time frame, The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD). These stocks are Orchard Supply Hardware Stores Corp (NASDAQ:OSH), Builders FirstSource, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLDR), Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc (NYSE:LL), , and Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE:LOW). This group of stocks are the members of the home improvement stores industry and their market caps match HD’s market cap.
