Is Granite Construction Inc. (GVA) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Legendary investors such as Leon Cooperman and Seth Klarman earn enormous amounts of money for themselves and their investors by doing in-depth research on small-cap stocks that big brokerage houses don’t publish. Small cap stocks -especially when they are screened well- can generate substantial outperformance versus a boring index fund. That’s why we analyze the activity of those elite funds in these small-cap stocks. In the following paragraphs, we analyze Granite Construction Inc. (NYSE:GVA) from the perspective of those elite funds.

Granite Construction Inc. (NYSE:GVA) has seen an increase in hedge fund sentiment of late. At the end of this article we will also compare GVA to other stocks including Potlatch Corporation (NASDAQ:PCH), Hyster-Yale Materials Handling Inc (NYSE:HY), and Children’s Place Retail Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLCE) to get a better sense of its popularity.

To the average investor, there are a multitude of metrics stock traders put to use to analyze their holdings. Two of the best metrics are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a healthy margin (see the details here).

Now, let’s view the latest action regarding Granite Construction Inc. (NYSE:GVA).

Hedge fund activity in Granite Construction Inc. (NYSE:GVA)

At Q3’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, up by 21% from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management has the most valuable position in Granite Construction Inc. (NYSE:GVA), worth close to $24.3 million, corresponding to 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Rutabaga Capital Management, led by Peter Schliemann, holding a $22.3 million position; 2.7% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining professional money managers that are bullish consist of Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.