Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Forrester Research, Inc. (FORR)

With the first-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the first quarter. One of these stocks was Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR).

Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR) was in 13 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. FORR shareholders have witnessed an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 10 hedge funds in our database with FORR holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that FORR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

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Roger Ibbotson Zebra Capital

Let’s take a look at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR).

What does smart money think about Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR)?

Heading into the second quarter of 2019, a total of 13 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 30% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 10 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in FORR a year ago. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

FORR_june2019

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR), with a stake worth $38.5 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was ACK Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $9.3 million. Millennium Management, GLG Partners, and Citadel Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.

Now, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, assembled the most outsized position in Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR). Arrowstreet Capital had $0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $0.8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Roger Ibbotson’s Zebra Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCPH), The Gorman-Rupp Company (NYSE:GRC), PetIQ, Inc. (NASDAQ:PETQ), and Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PARR). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to FORR’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
DCPH 17 216366 2
GRC 7 38502 0
PETQ 13 86032 0
PARR 16 109870 0
Average 13.25 112693 0.5

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $113 million. That figure was $63 million in FORR’s case. Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCPH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand The Gorman-Rupp Company (NYSEAMEX:GRC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR) 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. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately FORR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); FORR investors were disappointed as the stock returned -1.7% during the same time period and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q2.

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