Should You Buy Cohen & Steers, Inc. (CNS)?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) .

Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. CNS was in 9 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 8 hedge funds in our database with CNS holdings at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Surgical Care Affiliates Inc (NASDAQ:SCAI), MGE Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:MGEE), and Great Western Bancorp Inc (NYSE:GWB) to gather more data points.

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Now, let’s check out the recent action surrounding Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS).

What does the smart money think about Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 13% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 14 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in CNS heading into this year. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors has the most valuable position in Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS), worth close to $47.4 million. The second largest stake is held by Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, which holds a $21 million position. Some other professional money managers with similar optimism encompass Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Andrew Sandler’s Sandler Capital Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. We should note that none of these elite funds are among our list of the 100 best performing elite funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Sandler Capital Management created the largest position in Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS). Sandler Capital Management had $9.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp also initiated a $0.5 million position during the quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) but similarly valued. These stocks are Surgical Care Affiliates Inc (NASDAQ:SCAI), MGE Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:MGEE), Great Western Bancorp Inc (NYSE:GWB), and TerraForm Power Inc (NASDAQ:TERP). All of these stocks’ market caps match CNS’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $132 million. That figure was $104 million in CNS’s case. TerraForm Power Inc (NASDAQ:TERP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand MGE Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:MGEE) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Cohen & Steers, Inc. (NYSE:CNS) is as less popular than MGEE. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: None