Is Alexander’s, Inc. (ALX) A Good Stock To Buy?

Billionaire hedge fund managers such as Steve Cohen and Stan Druckenmiller can generate millions or even billions of dollars every year by pinning down high-potential small-cap stocks and pouring cash into these candidates. Small-cap stocks are overlooked by most investors, brokerage houses, and financial services hubs, while the unlimited research abilities of the big players within the hedge fund industry can easily identify the undervalued and high-potential stocks that reside the ignored corners of equity markets. There are numerous small-cap stocks that have turned out to be great winners, which is one of the main reasons the Insider Monkey team pays close attention to the hedge fund activity in relation to these stocks.

Alexander’s, Inc. (NYSE:ALX) shares didn’t see a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 6 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. At the end of this article we will also compare ALX to other stocks including Itron, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITRI), Anixter International Inc. (NYSE:AXE), and Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:LGND) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

Residential REIT Stocks

robert cicchetti / Shutterstock.com

Now, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action surrounding Alexander’s, Inc. (NYSE:ALX).

How have hedgies been trading Alexander’s, Inc. (NYSE:ALX)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, unchanged from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 5 hedge funds with a bullish position in ALX at the beginning of this year. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

HedgeFundSentimentChart

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Edmond M. Safra’s EMS Capital has the largest position in Alexander’s, Inc. (NYSE:ALX), worth close to $76.8 million, comprising 7.7% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, holding a $13 million position. Other peers that hold long positions encompass Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Alexander’s, Inc. (NYSE:ALX). We will take a look at Itron, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITRI), Anixter International Inc. (NYSE:AXE), Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:LGND), and Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE:CBU). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to ALX’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
ITRI 19 447778 3
AXE 20 468029 0
LGND 16 214075 0
CBU 4 9911 2

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 $285 million. That figure was $94 million in ALX’s case. Anixter International Inc. (NYSE:AXE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE:CBU) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Alexander’s, Inc. (NYSE:ALX) 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 AXE might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None