Mr. Market Sides with Smart Money on United Natural Foods and You Should Too

The eyes today will be on the analyst updates regarding United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI). So far, Jefferies Group has reaffirmed its ‘Buy’ rating earlier today and increased the price target to $59.00 from $58.00. However, hedge funds are rather cautious towards the company, as, during the second quarter, the number of funds with long positions in the company (among those we follow) declined by two to 15, while the total value of their holdings surged to $180.18 million from $105.24 million and amasses less than 6% of the company’s stock at the end of June.

Nevertheless, among the funds we track that own shares of United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI), the largest shareholders increased their stakes during the second quarter or disclosed new positions as of the end of June. Among them, Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management and Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management boosted their stakes by 85% and 209% to around 702,200 shares and 570,100 shares respectively. In addition, Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies added the company to its equity portfolio during the April – June period and held some 511,400 shares at the end of June. Despite this, it’s important to mention that in the equity portfolios of the top shareholders of United Natural Foods in our database, the position amasses tiny portions of the total value.

With this in mind, the stock’s reaction to the earnings results supports why smart money does not bet on United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI)’s turnaround, as it is still down by over 34% since the beginning of the year.

Disclosure: none