Central Garden & Pet Co (CENT): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers have jumped into Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT) headfirst. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, assembled the biggest position in Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT). Millennium Management had $4.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Muller’s PDT Partners also made a $1.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Mike Vranos’s Ellington, Mike Vranos’s Ellington, and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT). We will take a look at Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE), DHX Media Ltd (USA) (NASDAQ:DHXM), Relypsa Inc (NASDAQ:RLYP), and Inter Parfums, Inc. (NASDAQ:IPAR). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to CENT’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $139 million. That figure was $103 million in CENT’s case. Relypsa Inc (NASDAQ:RLYP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand DHX Media Ltd (USA) (NASDAQ:DHXM) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT) 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 RLYP might be a better candidate to consider a long position.