Do Hedge Funds Love Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (LECO)?

Due to the fact that Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) has experienced falling interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of fund managers who were dropping their positions entirely heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies dropped the largest investment of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $7 million in stock, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $2 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY), Siliconware Precision Industries (ADR) (NASDAQ:SPIL), Team Health Holdings LLC (NYSE:TMH), and Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to LECO’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $222 million. That figure was $277 million in LECO’s case. Team Health Holdings LLC (NYSE:TMH) is the most popular stock in this table, while Siliconware Precision Industries (ADR) (NASDAQ:SPIL) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) 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 TMH might be a better candidate to consider a long position.