Hedge Funds Are Souring On Chico’s FAS, Inc. (CHS)

The elite funds run by legendary investors such as Dan Loeb and David Tepper make hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves and their investors by spending enormous resources doing research on small cap stocks that big investment banks don’t follow. Because of their pay structures, they have strong incentive to do the research necessary to beat the market. That’s why we pay close attention to what they think in small cap stocks. In this article, we take a closer look at Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE:CHS) from the perspective of those elite funds.

Is Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE:CHS) an outstanding investment now? The smart money is in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund bets dropped by 1 lately. CHS was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 22 hedge funds in our database with CHS positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as GW Pharmaceuticals PLC- ADR (NASDAQ:GWPH), Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARIA), and BlackRock Credit All Inc Trust IV (NYSE:BTZ) to gather more data points.

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How are hedge funds trading Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE:CHS)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a 5% dip from the previous quarter, pushing hedge fund ownership of CHS down to a yearly low point. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, holds the number one position in Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE:CHS). Renaissance Technologies has a $51 million position in the stock. On Renaissance Technologies’ heels is AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, which holds a $24.3 million position. Some other professional money managers that hold long positions comprise D E Shaw, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and James A. Mitarotonda’s Barington Capital Group.