Home Depot Inc (HD), American Express Company (AXP), General Electric Company (GE): Ken Fisher and Insiders Are Bullish on These Stocks

We know Ken Fisher from his New York Times Best Seller business books, market beating ideas, which he has shared in his column in Forbes magazine since 1984 and his fund Fisher Asset Management. According to the latest filing, the fund has a total of 605 positions in its 13F portfolio, with an aggregate value of $50.05 billion as of the end of the first quarter of 2015. We have determined top three picks of Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management which saw insider purchases over the past three months. As of the end of first quarter of 2015, Ken Fisher’s favorite picks with recent insider purchases were Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) and General Electric Company (NYSE:GE).

Hedge funds allocate huge research budgets and resources for picking the best stocks in the market. We can learn their stock picks from their SEC filings. We are tracking more than 700 hedge funds, including Fisher Asset Management. We have developed a small-cap strategy consisting of 15 most-popular small-cap stocks among these hedge funds. During the last 2.5 years, these top 15 small-cap ideas of hedge funds generated a cumulative return of 131.4% vs. S&P 500 ETF (SPY)’s return of 57.2% in the same time period (read the details here).

Ken Fisher held a $942.68 million stake in Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD) at the end of the first quarter of 2015, which contained 8.30 million shares. Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD) is a major player in the U.S. home improvement industry; and leads the market with around 27.2% market share. The company directly benefits from the growth in the housing market. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimates home sales to rise by 6.4% in 2015 and 4.1% in 2016. Moreover, Home Depot has recently announced share repurchase authorization of $18 billion and increased quarterly dividend by 26% to $0.59 cents per share. On March 27, Wayne Hewett, a director of Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), bought 350 shares at an average price of $113.68 per share. Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD) also enjoys a significant popularity among hedge funds. Phill Gross’ Adage Capital Management, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management and John Armitage’s Egerton Capital Limited disclosed large positions in the company in their latest 13F filings.