Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months.
In today’s marketplace, there are dozens of indicators shareholders can use to track Mr. Market. Two of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a very impressive margin (see just how much).
Equally as beneficial, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of stimuli for a corporate insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Many academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).
Now, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action regarding Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI).
How are hedge funds trading Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI)?
Heading into Q2, a total of 18 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 38% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.
According to our comprehensive database, Michael Larson’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust had the largest position in Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI), worth close to $858.9 million, accounting for 4.7% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw, with a $222.4 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that are bullish include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Daniel Bubis’s Tetrem Capital Management and Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro’s PAR Capital Management.
As one would reasonably expect, some big names were breaking ground themselves. PAR Capital Management, managed by Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro, initiated the largest position in Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI). PAR Capital Management had 40.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also made a $12.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CNI investors: Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, and Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt..
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI)?
Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time frame, Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Canadian National Railway (USA) (NYSE:CNI). These stocks are Kansas City Southern (NYSE:KSU), Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (USA) (NYSE:CP), CSX Corporation (NYSE:CSX), Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC), and Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP). This group of stocks are the members of the railroads industry and their market caps are closest to CNI’s market cap.