Top Investors Are Pouring Into CBOE Holdings, Inc (CBOE) in Droves

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE).

CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE) investors should pay attention to an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently, with a net total of 9 hedgies adding the stock to their portfolios in Q3. At the end of this article we will also compare CBOE to other stocks including Fortinet Inc (NASDAQ:FTNT), athenahealth, Inc (NASDAQ:ATHN), and Pinnacle Foods Inc (NYSE:PF) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

What have hedge funds been doing with CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 24 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a 60% surge from the previous quarter, which pushed hedge fund ownership 20% above its high from the previous year. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, holds the number one position in CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE). Renaissance Technologies has a $289.6 million position in the stock. The second largest stake is held by Horizon Asset Management, led by Murray Stahl, holding a $67.9 million position; 1.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions consist of Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP.

As industry-wide interest jumped, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Millennium Management established the largest position in CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE). Millennium Management had $53.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Carlson Capital also made a $41.8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CBOE investors: Carl Tiedemann and Michael Tiedemann’s TIG Advisors, Isaac Corre’s Governors Lane, and Michael Kaine’s Numina Capital.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE). We will take a look at Fortinet Inc (NASDAQ:FTNT), athenahealth, Inc (NASDAQ:ATHN), Pinnacle Foods Inc (NYSE:PF), and Carter’s, Inc. (NYSE:CRI). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to CBOE’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $771 million. That figure was $590 million in CBOE’s case. Pinnacle Foods Inc (NYSE:PF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand athenahealth, Inc (NASDAQ:ATHN) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE) 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 PF might be a better candidate to consider a long position in. However, CBOE is a stock to watch, given the surge in hedge fund ownership last quarter.

Disclosure: None