Based on the fact that hedge funds have collectively under-performed the market for several years, it would be easy to assume that their stock picks simply aren’t very good. However, our research shows this not to be the case. In fact, when it comes to their very top picks collectively, they show a strong ability to pick winning stocks. Between November 1, 2014 and October 30 of this year, less than 49% of the stocks in the S&P 500 beat the market. However, hedge funds’ top 30 stock picks from the index had a much higher success rate than this, at 63%. The returns from these 30 stocks also easily bested the broader market, at 9.5% compared to 5.2%, despite there being a few duds in there like Micron and Anadarko (even their collective wisdom isn’t perfect). The results show that there is plenty of merit to imitating the collective wisdom of top investors.
Is Core Laboratories N.V. (NYSE:CLB) a buy, sell, or hold? The smart money is becoming less hopeful. The number of long hedge fund positions retreated by 7 in recent months. CLB was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 28 hedge funds in our database with CLB 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 Commerce Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBSH), Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. (NYSE:BKD), and Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE:IM) to gather more data points.
Follow Core Laboratories N V (NYSE:CLB)
Follow Core Laboratories N V (NYSE:CLB)
Keeping this in mind, let’s go over the fresh action regarding Core Laboratories N.V. (NYSE:CLB).
What have hedge funds been doing with Core Laboratories N.V. (NYSE:CLB)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -25% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Wallace Weitz’s Wallace R. Weitz & Co. has the number one position in Core Laboratories N.V. (NYSE:CLB), worth close to $22.9 million, corresponding to 0.7% of its total 13F portfolio. On Wallace R. Weitz & Co.’s heels is Craig C. Albert of Sheffield Asset Management, with a $20.9 million position; 3.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other members of the smart money with similar optimism contain Tom Gayner’s Markel Gayner Asset Management, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Constantinos J. Christofilis’s Archon Capital Management.
