Fund Managers Have Bought Buffalo Wild Wings, DaVita, and More

Citadel was also buying shares of $1 billion market cap semiconductor product designer QLogic Corporation (NASDAQ:QLGC). QLogic’s business is going in a different direction than that of Buffalo Wild Wings; in its most recent quarter revenue was down 14% compared to the same period in the previous year and this was more or less in line with results in the last two quarters. Wall Street analysts expect that 2014 will be a decent year for QLogic, with their consensus implying a forward earnings multiple of 14. We would note that QLogic has close to $500 million in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet.

Ferro Corporation (NYSE:FOE), a specialty chemicals company, had Brigade Capital Management report a position of 4.7 million shares. While Ferro’s market capitalization is only about $590 million, nearly 2 million shares are traded on average per day and so we would say that there is plenty of volume. Ferro has been struggling with profitability though the sell-side is forecasting a recovery in 2013: the current-year P/E is 14. With a beta of 2.5, the stock is highly sensitive to changes in the broader economy and the company’s revenue numbers have not been good recently.

Luxor Capital Group, managed by Christian Leone, owned 6.7 million shares of CommonWealth REIT (NYSE:CWH) according to a filing with the SEC. CommonWealth invests in commercial and industrial real estate and has a market cap of $1.9 billion. Real estate investment trusts often pay high dividend yields because they are required to distribute much of their income to shareholders in order to maintain their favorable tax status, and CommonWealth is no exception with a yield of 4.2% going by recent dividend payments. The company did cut its quarterly dividend in half last year to current levels.

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.