Is BIO-TECHNE Corp (TECH) a Good Stock To Buy?

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and famous investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds and investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find write-ups about an individual hedge fund’s trades on several financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves and analyze what the smart money thinks of BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH) based on that data.

BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH) experienced an increase in activity from smart money investors between July and September, as the number of funds tracked by Insider Monkey long the stock went up by four to 17. At the end of this article we will also compare TECH to other stocks including HollyFrontier Corp (NYSE:HFC), Store Capital Corp (NYSE:STOR), and BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

Now, let’s go over the latest action encompassing BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH).

How have hedgies been trading BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH)?

At the end of September, 17 funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH), which represents an increase of 31% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 11 hedge funds with a bullish position in TECH at the beginning of this year. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Select Equity Group, led by Robert Joseph Caruso, holds the number one position in BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH). Select Equity Group has a $253.7 million position in the stock, comprising 2.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates holding a $81.2 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers with similar optimism comprise Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. James Dondero’s Highland Capital Management created the biggest position in BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH). Highland Capital Management had $7.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also initiated a $5.7 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new TECH investors: Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, Mike Vranos’s Ellington, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH) but similarly valued. These stocks are HollyFrontier Corp (NYSE:HFC), Store Capital Corp (NYSE:STOR), BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF), and Life Storage Inc (NYSE:LSI). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble TECH’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16 hedge funds with bullish positions at the end of September and the average amount invested in these stocks was $200 million. That figure was $409 million in TECH’s case. HollyFrontier Corp (NYSE:HFC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Store Capital Corp (NYSE:STOR) is the least popular one with only 11 investors having reported long positions. BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard HollyFrontier Corp (NYSE:HFC) might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none