Do Hedge Funds Love National Instruments Corp (NATI)?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Stevens Capital Management, managed by Matthew Tewksbury, assembled the largest position in National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI). The fund reportedly had $0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors also made a $0.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new NATI positions are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and Daniel Arbess’s Perella Weinberg Partners.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI). We will take a look at PrivateBancorp Inc (NASDAQ:PVTB), ViaSat, Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT), HEALTHSOUTH Corp. (NYSE:HLS), and Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE:LDOS). This group of stocks’ market caps match NATI’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $904 million. That figure was a minor $373 million in NATI’s case. Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE:LDOS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ViaSat, Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT) is the least popular one with only 21 bullish hedge fund positions. National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI) 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 LDOS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: none.