AutoZone, Inc. (AZO) in Spotlight Following Earnings Release

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, billionaire Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management has the biggest position in AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO), worth close to $149.7 million, comprising 1.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Richard Chilton of Chilton Investment Company, with a $116 million position; 4.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Consequently, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Alyeska Investment Group, managed by Anand Parekh, initiated the largest position in AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO). Alyeska Investment Group had $51.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management also initiated a $29.9 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new AZO investors: Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, and Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC), Edison International (NYSE:EIX), State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT), and Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to AZO’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $754 million. That figure was $1080 million in AZO’s case. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average.

Disclosure: None