What Do Hedge Funds Think of C.R. Bard, Inc. (BCR)?

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 C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR).

Is C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) the right pick for your portfolio? The smart money is buying. The number of long hedge fund bets improved by 8 lately. 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 Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP), The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM), and Rockwell Automation (NYSE:ROK) to gather more data points.

In the eyes of most shareholders, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, old investment tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation today, Our experts choose to focus on the upper echelon of this club, about 700 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors preside over bulk of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by monitoring their best equity investments, Insider Monkey has spotted several investment strategies that have historically outstripped the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s small-cap hedge fund strategy defeated the S&P 500 index by 12 percentage points a year for a decade in their back tests.

Now, we’re going to review the recent action surrounding C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR).

What have hedge funds been doing with C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 31% from the second quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Yacktman Asset Management, managed by Donald Yacktman, holds the number one position in C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR). Yacktman Asset Management has an $272.8 million position in the stock, comprising 1.8% of its 13F portfolio. On Yacktman Asset Management’s heels is Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, which holds an $166 million position; 0.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other members of the smart money that are bullish encompass Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey’s Healthcor Management LP and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.

As one would reasonably expect, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Alyeska Investment Group, managed by Anand Parekh, established the largest position in C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR). Alyeska Investment Group had $100.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Christopher James’s Partner Fund Management also made an $14.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital, Andrew Sandler’s Sandler Capital Management, and Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP), The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM), Rockwell Automation (NYSE:ROK), and Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to BCR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $701 million. That figure was $1273 million in BCR’s case. The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard SJM might be a better candidate to consider a long position.