Is Ventas, Inc. (VTR) A Good Stock To Buy?

Page 2 of 2

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Balyasny Asset Management, led by Dmitry Balyasny, initiated the most valuable position in Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR). Balyasny Asset Management had $11.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $9.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new VTR positions are Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR). These stocks are CRH PLC (ADR) (NYSE:CRH), DISH Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH), VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW), and The Hershey Company (NYSE:HSY). All of these stocks’ market caps match VTR’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
CRH 8 83584 3
DISH 57 2963893 5
VMW 43 1797988 2
HSY 34 714396 6

As you can see these stocks had an average of 35.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1390 million. That figure was $442 million in VTR’s case. DISH Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CRH PLC (ADR) (NYSE:CRH) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR) 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 DISH might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Page 2 of 2