We can judge whether Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There’s no better way to get these firms’ immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market when we factor in known risk factors.
Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money of late. At the end of this article we will also compare HSC to other stocks including Retrophin Inc (NASDAQ:RTRX), Accelerate Diagnostics Inc (NASDAQ:AXDX), and National Bank Holdings Corp (NYSE:NBHC) to get a better sense of its popularity.
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Keeping this in mind, we’re going to check out the recent action regarding Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC).
How are hedge funds trading Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 70% from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Joe Huber’s Huber Capital Management has the most valuable position in Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC), worth close to $31 million, corresponding to 1.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Peter Schliemann of Rutabaga Capital Management, with a $18.8 million position; 2.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other professional money managers that hold long positions contain Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management.
Now, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Stevens Capital Management, managed by Matthew Tewksbury, assembled the biggest position in Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC). Stevens Capital Management had $0.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp also initiated a $0.4 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new HSC investors: Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital, Mike Vranos’s Ellington, and Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC). We will take a look at Retrophin Inc (NASDAQ:RTRX), Accelerate Diagnostics Inc (NASDAQ:AXDX), National Bank Holdings Corp (NYSE:NBHC), and Kronos Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:KRO). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to HSC’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTRX | 22 | 290891 | -3 |
| AXDX | 11 | 57321 | -3 |
| NBHC | 12 | 134438 | 1 |
| KRO | 6 | 1809 | -1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $121 million. That figure was $69 million in HSC’s case. Retrophin Inc (NASDAQ:RTRX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Kronos Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:KRO) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC) 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 RTRX might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
