Hedge Funds Are Buying Genesco Inc. (GCO)

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. D E Shaw established the largest position in Genesco Inc. (NYSE:GCO). D E Shaw had $1.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Muller’s PDT Partners also initiated a $0.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Chao Ku’s Nine Chapters Capital Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and David Dreman’s Dreman Value Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Genesco Inc. (NYSE:GCO). These stocks are Himax Technologies, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:HIMX), CoreSite Realty Corp (NYSE:COR), Dreamworks Animation Skg Inc (NASDAQ:DWA), and Penn National Gaming, Inc (NASDAQ:PENN). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to GCO’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $286 million. That figure was $106 million in GCO’s case. Penn National Gaming, Inc (NASDAQ:PENN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand, Dreamworks Animation Skg Inc (NASDAQ:DWA) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Genesco Inc. (NYSE:GCO) 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 PENN might be a better candidate to consider a long position.