John H. Lewis’ Osmium Partners Took 6.3% Passive Stake in $HPOL

John H. Lewis’ Osmium Partners filed 13G on October 20th for its 6.3% passive stake in Harris Interactive Inc. (HPOL). According to the 13G filing, the firm now has 3.52 million shares in HPOL. Osmium Partners is a general partner of Osmium Capital which did not report any position in HPOL in Q2. HPOL is in a downtrend throughout 2011. On October 11th, the stock rallied from a previously 10-day drop and is recovering from its 2-year low. Since HPOL’s volume is very small, it’s possible that Osmium Partners made large purchases on October 11th and boosted the price. Now HPOL’s 10-day MA is just above its 20-day MA, and a resistance is generated at around $0.44. Outsiders may imitate Osmium Partners’ transaction at this moment.

Except Osmium Partners, three other hedge funds had HPOL in their portfolios in the second quarter. Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates reported 3.42 million shares in its position, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies had 646 thousand shares. Stuart Peterson’s Artis Capital Management had 283 thousand shares.

Chuck Royce

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Osmium Partners, LLC is “an employee owned hedge fund sponsor. The firm primarily provides its services to pooled investment vehicles. It also caters to corporations. The firm invests in the public equity markets of the Unites States. It invests in value stocks of small-cap companies. Osmium Partners was founded on November 1, 2002 and is based in San Francisco, California”.

Harris Interactive Inc. is a professional services company which provides market research and polling services. The company mainly focuses on ad-hoc or customized qualitative and quantitative research, service bureau research  and long-term tracking studies. The company uses online data collection to provide custom research, tracking study research and service bureau research. The company was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in New York City, NY.