Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the second quarter. You can find write-ups about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves and analyze what the smart money thinks of Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) based on that data.
Is Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Investors who are in the know are taking a bullish view. The number of bullish hedge fund bets rose by 3 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that VPG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (see the video below). VPG was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2019. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with VPG holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are tons of signals market participants put to use to value publicly traded companies. A duo of the most useful signals are hedge fund and insider trading moves. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best hedge fund managers can outpace the market by a very impressive margin (see the details here).
Unlike former hedge manager, Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, who is convinced Dow will soar past 40000, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. Let’s review the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG).
How have hedgies been trading Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 27% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 16 hedge funds with a bullish position in VPG a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Nokomis Capital held the most valuable stake in Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG), which was worth $79 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Renaissance Technologies which amassed $30.5 million worth of shares. Moreover, Royce & Associates, Millennium Management, and Harvey Partners were also bullish on Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.
As one would reasonably expect, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Winton Capital Management, managed by David Harding, created the most valuable position in Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG). Winton Capital Management had $0.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners also initiated a $0.2 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new VPG position is Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) but similarly valued. These stocks are Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD), Matrix Service Co (NASDAQ:MTRX), Navigator Holdings Ltd (NYSE:NVGS), and OneSpan Inc. (NASDAQ:OSPN). This group of stocks’ market valuations match VPG’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRD | 11 | 37471 | 2 |
| MTRX | 14 | 32176 | -1 |
| NVGS | 14 | 240893 | 1 |
| OSPN | 10 | 71773 | -3 |
| Average | 12.25 | 95578 | -0.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $96 million. That figure was $159 million in VPG’s case. Matrix Service Co (NASDAQ:MTRX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand OneSpan Inc. (NASDAQ:OSPN) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) 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. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Unfortunately VPG wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VPG were disappointed as the stock returned -19.4% during the third quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
