Square Inc (SQ)’s Shares in Green Following Stock Upgrade

Shares of Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) have inched up by more than 1%, after the financial services firm BTIG upgraded the stock to “Buy” from “Neutral”. The firm cited valuation and potential for gains as the reasons for the rating upgrade. BTIG has a price target of $12 per share for the San Francisco based mobile payments company. Despite today’s gain, the stock is down by over 26% since the beginning of 2016, a fact that was not overlooked by smart money investors. Even though, Square saw a small increase in the number of funds with long positions among those tracked by Insider Monkey, the stock still remained largely overlooked at the end of the first quarter.

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At Q1’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long Square, up by five on the quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions). The largest stake was reported by billionaire Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management, which held a $100.1 million stake in the company at the end of March. It is followed by Christopher Lyle’s SCGE Management, which held a stake worth $38.2 million heading into the second quarter.

Similarly, a number of investors initiated stakes in Square during the first quarter, with Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management reporting the largest new position, worth $18.3 million. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, and Frank Slattery’s Symmetry Peak Management.

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