Is Hub Group Inc (HUBG) A Good Stock To Buy According To Hedge Funds?

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG).

Is Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG) undervalued? Money managers are in a bullish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund positions inched up by 4 lately. HUBG was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 17 hedge funds in our database with HUBG positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Ladder Capital Corp (NYSE:LADR), The Navigators Group, Inc (NASDAQ:NAVG), and WisdomTree Investments, Inc. (NASDAQ:WETF) to gather more data points.

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.

With all of this in mind, let’s check out the latest action surrounding Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG).

What have hedge funds been doing with Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 24% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital has the most valuable position in Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG), worth close to $150.1 million, corresponding to 0.9% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Ken Fisher of Fisher Asset Management, with a $62.5 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers with similar optimism include Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Now, key hedge funds have jumped into Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG) headfirst. Folger Hill Asset Management, managed by Solomon Kumin, created the most valuable position in Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG). Folger Hill Asset Management had $1.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management also initiated a $0.4 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new HUBG investors: Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt., and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG). These stocks are Ladder Capital Corp (NYSE:LADR), The Navigators Group, Inc (NASDAQ:NAVG), WisdomTree Investments, Inc. (NASDAQ:WETF), and Genesco Inc. (NYSE:GCO). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to HUBG’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $68 million. That figure was $287 million in HUBG’s case. The Navigators Group, Inc (NASDAQ:NAVG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ladder Capital Corp (NYSE:LADR) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.