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Many investors, including Paul Tudor Jones or Stan Druckenmiller, have been saying before the Q4 market crash that the stock market is overvalued due to a low interest rate environment that leads to companies swapping their equity for debt and focusing mostly on short-term performance such as beating the quarterly earnings estimates. In the first quarter, most investors recovered all of their Q4 losses as sentiment shifted and optimism dominated the US China trade negotiations. Nevertheless, many of the stocks that delivered strong returns in the first quarter still sport strong fundamentals and their gains were more related to the general market sentiment rather than their individual performance and hedge funds kept their bullish stance. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment to Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) changed recently.
Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in activity from the world's largest hedge funds lately. Our calculations also showed that VPG isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that hedge funds' large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that'll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 30.9% through May 30, 2019. That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Let's review the latest hedge fund action encompassing Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG).
What have hedge funds been doing with Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG)?
At Q1's end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -15% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 16 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in VPG a year ago. With hedge funds' sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) was held by Nokomis Capital, which reported holding $66.5 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Renaissance Technologies with a $24.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Royce & Associates, Harvey Partners, and D E Shaw.