Hedge Funds Are Betting On Kraton Corp (KRA)

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have jumped into Kraton Corp (NYSE:KRA) headfirst. Luminus Management, led by Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal, assembled the largest position in KKraton Corp (NYSE:KRA). According to its latest 13F filing, the fund had $5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Bart Baum’s Ionic Capital Management also made a $2.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Robert Vollero and Gentry T. Beach’s Vollero Beach Capital Partners, David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments, and Charles Paquelet’s Skylands Capital.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Kraton Corp (NYSE:KRA). We will take a look at Interface, Inc. (NASDAQ:TILE), TPG Specialty Lending Inc (NYSE:TSLX), The Spectranetics Corporation (NASDAQ:SPNC), and Merit Medical Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MMSI). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble KRA’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $89 million. That figure was $228 million in KRA’s case. The Spectranetics Corporation (NASDAQ:SPNC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TPG Specialty Lending Inc (NYSE:TSLX) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Kraton Corp (NYSE:KRA) 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 SPNC might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.