5 Stocks Billionaire David Harding is Buying in Droves

4. W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB)

Value of Winton Capital Management‘s 13F Position: $17.3 million

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 35

Winton Capital’s stake in W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) was 884% larger at the end of Q1 than it was at the beginning of it, with the fund amassing a position of 259,167 shares during the quarter. Jonathan Bloomberg’s BloombergSen is the most bullish shareholder of WRB in our database, having nearly 8% exposure to the stock.

Operating primarily as a property casualty insurer, W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) appears poised to benefit from rising interest rates in a somewhat unexpected way. Insurers typically invest the majority of their substantial cash flow into bonds, which have been playing close to zilch in recent years. However, with rates on the rise, bonds are likewise on the move up, making them a much more profitably investment for insurers.

Six-month Treasury bills now yield over 2.6%, compared to a paltry 0.1% just a year earlier. That equates to a 26x boost in a major profitability component for insurers, which have slim margins on their premiums but can pocket all of their investment windfalls. W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) shares have gained 16% this year due to that tailwind, and that run should continue throughout the current rate cycle based on its performance during the two most recent hiking cycles.