Should You Avoid On Assignment, Inc. (ASGN)?

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Concerns over a shift in Fed’s easy monetary policy have hit several hedge funds hard during the third quarter. A number of sectors are in correction territory. More importantly, Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) underperformed the larger S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 14 percentage points between June 25, 2015 and October 30, 2015. Hedge funds and institutional investors tracked by Insider Monkey usually invest a disproportionate amount of their portfolios in smaller cap stocks. We have been receiving indications that hedge funds were paring back their overall exposure and this is one of the factors behind the recent movements in major indices. In this article, we will take a closer look at hedge fund sentiment towards On Assignment, Inc. (NYSE:ASGN).

Is On Assignment, Inc. (NYSE:ASGN) ready to rally soon? Hedge funds are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund positions went down by 4 in recent months. At the end of this article we will also compare ASGN to other stocks, including Demandware Inc (NYSE:DWRE), The Advisory Board Company (NASDAQ:ABCO), and SemGroup Corp (NYSE:SEMG) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Follow Asgn Inc (NYSE:ASGN)

To the average investor there are dozens of formulas stock traders use to analyze publicly traded companies. A duo of the less known formulas are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top fund managers can beat the market by a healthy margin (see the details here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the key action surrounding On Assignment, Inc. (NYSE:ASGN).

What have hedge funds been doing with On Assignment, Inc. (NYSE:ASGN)?

At the Q3’s end, a total of 16 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -20% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Mariko Gordon’s Daruma Asset Management has the number one position in On Assignment, Inc. (NYSE:ASGN), worth close to $51.5 million, comprising 3.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Douglas Dossey and Arthur Young’s Tensile Capital, with a $30.7 million position; 9.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions consist of Ira Unschuld’s Brant Point Investment Management, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management.

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