Hedge Funds Are Betting On Barnes Group Inc. (B)

As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Pine River Capital Management, led by Brian Taylor, assembled the most outsized position in Barnes Group Inc. (NYSE:B). According to its latest 13F filing, the fund had $0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.5 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new Barnes Group investors: Mike Vranos’s Ellington, Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Barnes Group Inc. (NYSE:B) but similarly valued. These stocks are Alexander & Baldwin Inc (NYSE:ALEX), Healthequity Inc (NASDAQ:HQY), Applied Industrial Technologies (NYSE:AIT), and Kennametal Inc. (NYSE:KMT). This group of stocks’ market values match B’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 $210 million. That figure was $34 million in B’s case. Kennametal Inc. (NYSE:KMT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Alexander & Baldwin Inc (NYSE:ALEX) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Barnes Group Inc. (NYSE:B) 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 KMT might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.