Hedge Funds Are Coming Back To Bruker Corporation (BRKR)

The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on June 30th. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 873 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) based on those filings.

Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) was in 31 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 31. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that BRKR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 79 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We have been able to outperform the passive index funds by tracking the moves of corporate insiders and hedge funds, and we believe small investors can benefit a lot from reading hedge fund investor letters and 13F filings.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Keeping this in mind let’s take a glance at the key hedge fund action surrounding Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR).

Do Hedge Funds Think BRKR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 31 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 41% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards BRKR over the last 24 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Arrowstreet Capital held the most valuable stake in Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR), which was worth $114.6 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $70.1 million worth of shares. Marshall Wace LLP, Montanaro Asset Management, and Alyeska Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Montanaro Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR), around 5.47% of its 13F portfolio. Sivik Global Healthcare is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.41 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BRKR.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, created the biggest position in Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR). Marshall Wace LLP had $44 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management also initiated a $5.4 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BRKR investors: John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Richard SchimeláandáLawrence Sapanski’s Cinctive Capital Management, and Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at RPM International Inc. (NYSE:RPM), Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON), Sunrun Inc (NASDAQ:RUN), SentinelOne, Inc. (NYSE:S), Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA), Cree, Inc. (NASDAQ:CREE), and IPG Photonics Corporation (NASDAQ:IPGP). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble BRKR’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 34.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1144 million. That figure was $460 million in BRKR’s case. SentinelOne, Inc. (NYSE:S) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand RPM International Inc. (NYSE:RPM) is the least popular one with only 22 bullish hedge fund positions. Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for BRKR is 50. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 24.9% in 2021 through October 15th and still beat the market by 4.5 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on BRKR as the stock returned 1.7% since the end of the second quarter (through 10/15) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.