Is Deere & Company (DE) A Good Stock To Buy?

Before putting in our own effort and resources into finding a good investment, we can quickly utilize hedge fund expertise to give us a quick glimpse of whether that stock could make for a good addition to our portfolios. The odds are not exactly stacked in investors’ favor when it comes to beating the market, as evidenced by the fact that less than 49% of the stocks in the S&P 500 did so during the 12-month period ending October 30. However, 63% of hedge funds’ top 30 stock picks from the index did beat the market, and returned nearly twice as much on average as the index. Thus, we can see that the tireless research and efforts of hedge funds to identify winning stocks can work to our advantage when we know how to use the data. While not all of their picks will be winners, our odds are much better following their best stock picks than trying to go it alone.

Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) has seen an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. DE was in 35 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2015. There were 31 hedge funds in our database with DE positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare DE to other stocks including TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL), Eaton Corporation, PLC Ordinary Shares (NYSE:ETN), and Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) to get a better sense of its popularity.

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the latest action regarding Deere & Company (NYSE:DE).

How are hedge funds trading Deere & Company (NYSE:DE)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 35 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 13% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has the number one position in Deere & Company (NYSE:DE), worth close to $1.2619 billion, accounting for 1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Berkshire Hathaway’s heels is David Blood and Al Gore of Generation Investment Management, with a $343.6 million position; 5% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other professional money managers that are bullish contain Bob Peck and Andy Raab’s FPR Partners, Tom Gayner’s Markel Gayner Asset Management and Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors.