A. O. Smith Corporation (AOS): Hedge Fund Sentiment Fails to Rebound

Since A. O. Smith Corporation (NYSE:AOS) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of funds who sold off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Gregg Moskowitz’s Interval Partners sold off the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at about $8.2 million in stock. Jim Simons’ fund, Renaissance Technologies, also sold off its stock, about $8 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as A. O. Smith Corporation (NYSE:AOS) but similarly valued. These stocks are Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR), Camden Property Trust (NYSE:CPT), Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc (NYSE:ARE), and Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to AOS’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $227 million. That figure was $352 million in AOS’s case. Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Camden Property Trust (NYSE:CPT) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. A. O. Smith Corporation (NYSE:AOS) 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 TIF might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None