Is KEYW Holding Corp. (KEYW) A Good Stock To Buy?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have jumped into KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW) headfirst. PDT Partners created the most outsized position in KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW). PDT Partners had $0.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Renaissance Technologies also made a $0.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new KEYW positions are Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp, and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW) but similarly valued. These stocks are Intersect ENT Inc (NASDAQ:XENT), Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR), Village Super Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:VLGEA), and Sportsman’s Warehouse Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:SPWH). This group of stocks’ market caps match KEYW’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $45 million. That figure was $12 million in KEYW’s case. Sportsman’s Warehouse Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:SPWH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Village Super Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:VLGEA) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW) 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. In this regard SPWH might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None