Hedge Funds Are Crazy About Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC)

As one would reasonably expect, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Luminus Management, run by Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal, established the most outsized position in Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC). The fund had $125.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Solomon Kumin’s Folger Hill Asset Management also made a $17.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Gregg Moskowitz’s Interval Partners.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC) but similarly valued. These stocks are Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Spectra Energy Corp. (NYSE:SE), and Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV). This group of stocks’ market values resemble NSC’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 41 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.48 billion. That figure was just $759 million in NSC’s case. Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Spectra Energy Corp. (NYSE:SE) is the least popular one with only 25 bullish hedge fund positions. Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC) 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 LUV might be a better candidate to consider a long position.