Is Kadant Inc. (KAI) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Consequently, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. AlphaOne Capital Partners, managed by Paul Hondros, initiated the most valuable position in Kadant Inc. (NYSE:KAI). AlphaOne Capital Partners had $2.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors also initiated an $0.8 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new KAI investors: Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital, and Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Kadant Inc. (NYSE:KAI) but similarly valued. These stocks are Winmark Corporation (NASDAQ:WINA), Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL), La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company (NASDAQ:LJPC), and C&J Energy Services Inc (NYSE:CJES). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble KAI’s market cap.

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 $83 million. That figure was $28 million in KAI’s case. C&J Energy Services Inc (NYSE:CJES) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Winmark Corporation (NASDAQ:WINA) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Kadant Inc. (NYSE:KAI) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal, but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard CJES might be a better candidate to consider a long position.