Hedge funds are not perfect. They have their bad picks just like everyone else. Facebook, a stock hedge funds have loved, lost nearly 40% of its value at one point in 2018. Although hedge funds are not perfect, their consensus picks do deliver solid returns, however. Our data show the top 15 S&P 500 stocks among hedge funds at the end of December 2018 yielded an average return of 19.7% year-to-date, vs. a gain of 13.1% for the S&P 500 Index. Because hedge funds have a lot of resources and their consensus picks do well, we pay attention to what they think. In this article, we analyze what the elite funds think of Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC).

Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC) was in 29 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. HRC investors should be aware of an increase in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with HRC positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that HRC isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey's flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 20.7% year to date (through March 12th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

We're going to take a look at the key hedge fund action regarding Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC).

Heading into the first quarter of 2019, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 21% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in HRC over the last 14 quarters. With hedgies' positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an "upper tier" of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Fisher Asset Management held the most valuable stake in Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC), which was worth $116.3 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $112.3 million worth of shares. Moreover, Select Equity Group, Renaissance Technologies, and Alyeska Investment Group were also bullish on Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.