What Smart Money Thinks about Realty Income Corp (O)?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Two Sigma Advisors, led by John Overdeck and David Siegel, assembled the biggest position in Realty Income Corp (NYSE:O). Two Sigma Advisors had $13.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Malcolm Fairbairn’s Ascend Capital also initiated a $6.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new O positions are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Realty Income Corp (NYSE:O). We will take a look at Analog Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADI), Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP), Roper Industries, Inc. (NYSE:ROP), and C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to Realty Income Corp’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23 funds with bullish positions at the end of September and the average amount invested in these stocks was $760 million, which is significantly higher than the $171 million figure in  in Realty Income Corp’s case. C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Realty Income Corp (NYSE:O) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.