Sudden Surge in Crane Co. (CR) Ownership Among Hedge Funds

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, created the biggest position in Crane Co. (NYSE:CR). Arrowstreet Capital had $1.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management also initiated a $1.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Chao Ku’s Nine Chapters Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Crane Co. (NYSE:CR) but similarly valued. These stocks are Wayfair Inc (NYSE:W), Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC), Aspen Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZPN), and Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:CY). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble CR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $421 million. That figure was $297 million in CR’s case. Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Aspen Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZPN) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Crane Co. (NYSE:CR) 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 HRC might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None