Hedge Funds Are Buying Manhattan Associates, Inc. (MANH)

Hedge funds are not perfect. They have their bad picks just like everyone else. Micron, a stock hedge funds love, lost 50% during the last 12 months ending October 30. Although hedge funds are not perfect, their consensus picks do deliver solid returns. Our data shows that the top 30 S&P 500 stocks among hedge funds at the end of September 2014 yielded an average return of 9.5% in the same time period, vs. a gain of 5.2% for the S&P 500 Index as a whole. Because hedge funds have a lot of resources and their consensus picks do well, we pay attention to what they think. In this article, we analyze what the elite funds think of Manhattan Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:MANH).

Is Manhattan Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:MANH) going to take off soon? Hedge funds are becoming hopeful. The number of bullish hedge fund positions moved up by 6 in recent months. At the end of this article we will also compare MANH to other stocks including Empire State Realty Trust Inc (NYSE:ESRT), Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (ADR) (NYSE:ASR), and Howard Hughes Corp (NYSE:HHC) to get a better sense of its popularity.

In today’s marketplace there are many tools stock market investors put to use to evaluate publicly traded companies. Some of the most underrated tools are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite hedge fund managers can trounce the broader indices by a solid margin (see the details here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to view the recent action encompassing Manhattan Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:MANH).

What have hedge funds been doing with Manhattan Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:MANH)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a 43% burst from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or had already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies has the most valuable position in Manhattan Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ:MANH), worth close to $132.4 million, corresponding to 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting in the 2 spot is Select Equity Group, led by Robert Joseph Caruso, holding a $21.7 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions contain Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and Legg Mason Capital Management, now a part of ClearBridge.