Is Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (CASY) a Good Buy?

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Hitchwood Capital Management, managed by James Crichton, assembled the most valuable position in Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:CASY). Hitchwood Capital Management had $51.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management also initiated a $12.9 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are George Hall’s Clinton Group, Peter Muller’s PDT Partners, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:CASY) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI), Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT), Zebra Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:ZBRA), and Echostar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble CASY’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $501 million. That figure was $159 million in CASY’s case. Zebra Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:ZBRA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:CASY) 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 ZBRA might be a better candidate to consider a long position.