Should You Buy The J.M. Smucker Company (SJM)?

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. OZ Management established the most outsized position in The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM). OZ Management had $314.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Robert Pohly’s Samlyn Capital also initiated a $55.1 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new SJM investors: Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Rockwell Automation (NYSE:ROK), Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX), Molson Coors Brewing Company (NYSE:TAP), and Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to SJM’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 43 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.24 billion. That figure was $1.58 billion in SJM’s case. Molson Coors Brewing Company (NYSE:TAP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) is the least popular one with only 31 bullish hedge fund positions. The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM) 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 TAP might be a better candidate to consider a long position.