Do Hedge Funds Love Steris Corp (STE)?

Is Steris Corp (NYSE:STE) a good bet right now? We like to analyze hedge fund sentiment before doing days of in-depth research. We do so because hedge funds and other elite investors have numerous Ivy league graduates, expert network advisers, and supply chain tipsters working or consulting for them. There is not a shortage of news stories covering failed hedge fund investments (for some reason media paid a ton of attention to Ackman’s gigantic JC Penney and Valeant failures) and it is a fact that hedge funds’ picks don’t beat the market 100% of the time, but their consensus picks have historically done very well and have outperformed the market after adjusting for risk.

Is STERIS Corp (NYSE:STE) a superb investment today? Prominent investors are in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund bets decreased by 1 in recent months. STE was in 23 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with STE holdings at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as ON Semiconductor Corp (NASDAQ:ON), USG Corporation (NYSE:USG), and The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) to gather more data points.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a gander at the fresh action encompassing STERIS Corp (NYSE:STE).

How have hedgies been trading STERIS Corp (NYSE:STE)?

Heading into Q4, a total of 23 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -4% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management has the biggest position in STERIS Corp (NYSE:STE), worth close to $105.3 million, corresponding to 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Iridian Asset Management, led by David Cohen and Harold Levy, holding a $89.3 million position; the fund has 0.8% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining members of the smart money that hold long positions comprise Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management.