Is Moog Inc (MOG.A) A Good Stock To Buy?

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG.A).

Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG.A) was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. MOG.A investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most successful money managers in recent months. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with MOG holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare MOG.A to other stocks including Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO), Sothebys (NYSE:BID), and Dril-Quip, Inc. (NYSE:DRQ) 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.

What does the smart money think about Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG.A)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a 6% increase from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 17 hedge funds also held shares or bullish call options in MOG.A heading into this year, and hedge fund ownership of the stock has been remarkably stable over the past 5 quarters, never shifting by more than 1 fund in any quarter. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, D E Shaw, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, holds the largest position in Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG.A). D E Shaw has a $23.1 million position in the stock. Coming in second is Arrowstreet Capital, led by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, holding an $18.2 million position. Some other members of the smart money that are bullish include Richard S. Meisenberg’s ACK Asset Management, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, and Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors. 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, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Gotham Asset Management, led by Joel Greenblatt, initiated the most outsized position in Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG.A). Gotham Asset Management had $4.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management also made a $3.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new MOG position is Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG.A). These stocks are Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO), Sothebys (NYSE:BID), Dril-Quip, Inc. (NYSE:DRQ), and Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX). This group of stocks’ market values match MOG.A’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 21 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $256 million. That figure was $92 million in MOG.A’s case. Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG.A) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal, as we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard MLNX might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None