Do Hedge Funds Love Steris Corp (STE)?

Since STERIS Corp (NYSE:STE) has witnessed declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who were dropping their positions entirely last quarter. Intriguingly, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management sold off the largest position of the 700 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising about $8.8 million in stock, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $2.2 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as STERIS Corp (NYSE:STE) but similarly valued. These stocks are ON Semiconductor Corp (NASDAQ:ON), USG Corporation (NYSE:USG), The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC), and Hospitality Properties Trust (NYSE:HPT). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to STE’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $512 million. That figure was $352 million in STE’s case. ON Semiconductor Corp (NASDAQ:ON) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Hospitality Properties Trust (NYSE:HPT) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. STERIS Corp (NYSE:STE) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard ON might be a better candidate to consider a long position.