Hedge Funds Are Betting On Assurant, Inc. (AIZ)

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital initiated the largest position in Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ). Arrowstreet Capital had $15.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ascend Capital also initiated a $10.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new AIZ positions are Lawrence Sapanski’s Scoria Capital, Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners, and Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ). We will take a look at Calpine Corporation (NYSE:CPN), Relx PLC (ADR) (NYSE:RELX), Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS), and Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE:ARW). This group of stocks’ market values match AIZ’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $371 million, compared to $433 million in AIZ’s case. Calpine Corporation (NYSE:CPN) is the most popular stock in this table, while Relx PLC (ADR) (NYSE:RELX) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) is not the least popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard CPN might be a better candidate to consider a long position.