Hedge Funds Are Betting On Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (APD)

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. OZ Management, managed by Daniel S. Och, created the biggest call position in Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD). OZ Management had $253.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David Cohen and Harold Levy’s Iridian Asset Management also made a $83.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new APD positions are Andrew Immerman and Jeremy Schiffman’s Palestra Capital Management, Will Snellings’s Marianas Fund Management, and Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD). These stocks are State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT), Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), and Johnson Controls, Inc. (NYSE:JCI). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to APD’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 42 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.85 billion, significantly below the $7.81 billion figure in APD’s case. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is the most popular stock in this table, while State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT) is the least popular one with only 24 bullish hedge fund positions. Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) 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 YHOO might be a better candidate to consider a long position.