Hedge Funds Are Crazy About Morningstar, Inc. (MORN)

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, established the most valuable position in Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN). Arrowstreet Capital had $0.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mike Vranos’s Ellington also initiated a $0.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Ken Gray and Steve Walsh’s Bryn Mawr Capital, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN). These stocks are Vermilion Energy Inc (NYSE:VET), Equity Commonwealth (NYSE:EQC), Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBRL), and Office Depot Inc (NYSE:ODP). This group of stocks’ market valuations match MORN’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $411 million. That figure was $267 million in MORN’s case. Office Depot Inc (NYSE:ODP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vermilion Energy Inc (NYSE:VET) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN) 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 ODP might be a better candidate to consider a long position.