Is Bank of Montreal (USA) (BMO) A Good Stock To Buy?

Is Bank of Montreal (USA) (NYSE:BMO) a good bet right now? We like to analyze hedge fund sentiment before doing days of in-depth research. We do so because hedge funds and other elite investors have numerous Ivy league graduates, expert network advisers, and supply chain tipsters working or consulting for them. There is not a shortage of news stories covering failed hedge fund investments (for some reason media paid a ton of attention to Ackman’s gigantic JC Penney and Valeant failures) and it is a fact that hedge funds’ picks don’t beat the market 100% of the time, but their consensus picks have historically done very well and have outperformed the market after adjusting for risk.

Bank of Montreal (USA) (NYSE:BMO) was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. BMO shareholders have witnessed a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money of late. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with BMO positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare BMO to other stocks including CIGNA Corporation (NYSE:CI), BCE Inc. (USA) (NYSE:BCE), and Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Now, we’re going to go over the recent action encompassing Bank of Montreal (USA) (NYSE:BMO).

How have hedgies been trading Bank of Montreal (USA) (NYSE:BMO)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -11% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, holds the biggest position in Bank of Montreal (USA) (NYSE:BMO). AQR Capital Management has a $72 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Hutchin Hill Capital, led by Neil Chriss, holding a $31.4 million position; the fund has 1.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.