Is Snap-on Incorporated (SNA) A Good Stock To Buy?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Select Equity Group, managed by Robert Joseph Caruso, created the biggest position in Snap-on Incorporated (NYSE:SNA). Select Equity Group had $25.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management also initiated a $2 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new SNA investors: George Hall’s Clinton Group, Colin Hall and James Davidson’s Long Oar Global Investors, and Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Snap-on Incorporated (NYSE:SNA) but similarly valued. These stocks are Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA), Alkermes Plc (NASDAQ:ALKS), Shaw Communications Inc (USA) (NYSE:SJR), and Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to SNA’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 26.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $782 million, higher than the $586 million figure in SNA’s case. Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA) is the most popular stock in this table with 35 long positions, while Shaw Communications Inc (USA) (NYSE:SJR) is the least popular one. Snap-on Incorporated (NYSE:SNA) 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 VOYA might be a better candidate to consider a long position.