Is Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (PNW) A Good Stock To Buy?

World-class money managers like Bill Ackman and Barry Rosenstein only invest their wealthy clients’ money after undertaking a rigorous examination of any potential stock. They are particularly successful in this regard when it comes to small-cap stocks, which their peerless research gives them a big information advantage on when it comes to judging their worth. It’s not surprising then that they generate their biggest returns from these stocks and invest more of their money in these stocks on average than other investors. It’s also not surprising then that we pay close attention to these picks ourselves and have built a market-beating investment strategy around them.

Is Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW) a buy here? Investors who are in the know are becoming less hopeful. The number of long hedge fund positions went down by 6 in recent months. At the end of this article we will also compare PNW to other stocks including Aramark (NYSE:ARMK), DENTSPLY International Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY), and The WhiteWave Foods Co (NYSE:WWAV) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at the fresh action encompassing Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW).

What does the smart money think about Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW)?

Heading into Q4, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -25% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, holds the number one position in Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW). AQR Capital Management has an $148.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.3% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $82.6 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish encompass Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management.