Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love Kimberly Clark Corp (KMB)?

Page 1 of 2

Do you own shares of Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB)? Then you might want to pay attention.

If you were to ask many of your peers, hedge funds are perceived as overrated, old investment tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, this site looks at the bigwigs of this club, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group oversees the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their best equity investments, we’ve brought to light a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outpaced the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).

Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB)

Just as crucial, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are many stimuli for a bullish insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s study the recent info for Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB).

How have hedgies been trading Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 25 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 25% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital had the most valuable position in Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB), worth close to $192 million, accounting for 2.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, with a $141.3 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions include Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management and Louis Navellier’s Navellier & Associates.

With a general bullishness amongst the titans, particular hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Diamond Hill Capital, managed by Ric Dillon, created the biggest position in Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB). Diamond Hill Capital had 192 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management also initiated a $141.3 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new KMB investors: Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management, and Louis Navellier’s Navellier & Associates.

How are insiders trading Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB)?

Insider buying is at its handiest when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest six-month time frame, Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB). These stocks are Energizer Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:ENR), The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG), Avon Products, Inc. (NYSE:AVP), Estee Lauder Companies Inc (NYSE:EL), and Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL). This group of stocks are the members of the personal products industry and their market caps resemble KMB’s market cap.

Page 1 of 2