Hedge Funds Are Crazy About Coty Inc (COTY)

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Permian Investment Partners, managed by Alex Duran and Scott Hendrickson, initiated the most outsized position in Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY). The fund reportedly had $24.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management also made a $22.8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new COTY investors: David Steinberg and Eric Udoff’s Marlowe Partners, Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) but similarly valued. These stocks are Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS), Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT), Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (ADR) (NYSE:EOC), and Cimarex Energy Co (NYSE:XEC). This group of stocks’ market caps match COTY’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $841 million. That figure was just $438 million in COTY’s case. Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS) is the most popular stock in this table, while Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (ADR) (NYSE:EOC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) 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 VIPS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.