Hedge Funds Are Betting On AvalonBay Communities Inc (AVB)

As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Echo Street Capital Management, managed by Greg Poole, established the biggest position in AvalonBay Communities Inc (NYSE:AVB). The fund reportedly had $7.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David S. Winter and David J. Millstone’s 40 North Management also initiated a $5 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new AVB investors: George Soros’s Soros Fund Management, John Burbank’s Passport Capital, and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to AvalonBay Communities Inc (NYSE:AVB). We will take a look at SYSCO Corporation (NYSE:SYY), Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN), Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC), and Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble AVB’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 38 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2.28 billion. That figure was a meager $635 million in AVB’s case. Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO) is the most popular stock in this table, while AvalonBay Communities Inc (NYSE:AVB) is on par with Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN) at the bottom of the table with only 24 bullish hedge fund positions. Taking it all into consideration, we believe PRGO might be a better candidate to consider a long position.