Do Hedge Funds Love Ply Gem Holdings Inc (PGEM)?

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM) .

Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM) has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest recently. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with PGEM positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare PGEM to other stocks including Apollo Group Inc (NASDAQ:APOL), Synergy Resources Corp (NYSEAMEX:SYRG), and Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a glance at the latest action encompassing Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM).

How are hedge funds trading Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, up 20% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in PGEM over the last 5 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Rutabaga Capital Management, led by Peter Schliemann, holds the biggest position in Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM). According to regulatory filings, the fund has a $16.7 million position in the stock, comprising 3.3% of its 13F portfolio. On Rutabaga Capital Management’s heels is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $11.2 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds and institutional investors with similar optimism comprise Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, led by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, initiated the largest position in Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM). According to its latest 13F filing, the fund had $0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Roger Ibbotson’s Zebra Capital Management also initiated a $0.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new PGEM positions are Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital, George Hall’s Clinton Group, and Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Apollo Group Inc (NASDAQ:APOL), Synergy Resources Corp (NYSEAMEX:SYRG), Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK), and National HealthCare Corporation (NYSEAMEX:NHC). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to PGEM’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 15 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $142 million. That figure was $61 million in PGEM’s case. Gibraltar Industries Inc (NASDAQ:ROCK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National HealthCare Corporation (NYSEAMEX:NHC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Ply Gem Holdings Inc (NYSE:PGEM) 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 ROCK might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.