What Do Hedge Funds Think of Aon PLC (AON)?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Winton Capital Management, managed by David Harding, created the most outsized position in Aon PLC (NYSE:AON). Winton Capital Management had $19.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Muller’s PDT Partners also initiated a $14.1 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new AON positions are Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and Andre F. Perold’s HighVista Strategies.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Aon PLC (NYSE:AON) but similarly valued. We will take a look at LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD), Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU), Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ), and ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN). This group of stocks’ market valuations match AON’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 42 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.92 billion. That figure was $3.37 billion in AON’s case. Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) is the least popular one with only 32 bullish hedge fund positions. Aon PLC (NYSE:AON) 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 STZ might be a better candidate to consider a long position.