5 Profitable Stocks Loved By Top Fund Managers

We rank the hedge fund managers by looking at how each fund performs in comparison to other hedge funds and to the S&P 500. Top hedge funds generate the highest return based on their stock portfolio, and consistently outperform the market. We can see where the “smart money” is really going, and then use recent analyst reports to find the hottest stocks that also have Street support.

So here are five stocks that the best performing fund managers are bullish on- and have big upside potential according to the Street:

1. Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC):

Top fund managers are snapping up WDC, one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world. In the last quarter, fund managers ramped up WDC holdings by 1.4 million shares. Big-name investors include Theofanis Kolokotrones with a position of almost $100 million. Kolokotrones, manager of the $116 billion Primecap fund, is ranked #24 out of 203 hedge fund managers on TipRanks.

With a ‘Strong Buy’ analyst consensus rating and an average analyst price target of $119, WDC has impressive upside potential of over 37% from the current share price. Maxim Group’s Nehal Chokshi applauds WDC’s “bold” acquisition of flash storage company Tegile at the end of August. Tegile has been a leader in the hybrid storage array market since 2013, says Chokshi. He believes that the deal will help WDC compete in the evolving IT systems market.

2. Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI):

You may not have heard of this Irish company that produces automotive parts such as batteries and electronics, as well as heating, ventilation and aircon (HVAC) for buildings. However big-name hedge funds are very bullish on the stock. We can see that in the last quarter hedge funds increased holdings in the stock by 29.3 million shares. Ric Dillon, for example, of the $18.5 billion Diamond Hill fund, ramped up his JCI holding by a massive 20,209% to $48.5 million.

Likewise, the stock has a Strong Buy analyst consensus rating and upside potential of over 20%. TipRanks shows that the average analyst price target on the stock works out at $48. The company has just accelerated its CEO transition by six months. Cowen & Co analyst Gautam Khanna says this will lead to clearer financial accountability and cheers the departure of a “mediocre” CEO.

“Mr. Molinaroli’s departure and the Board changes should expand the base of potential investors in JCI’s stock given well established concerns about JCI’s poor corporate governance” concludes Khanna.

3. Micron (NASDAQ:MU):

Hedge fund managers appear confident that this exploding semiconductor stock still has plenty of upside potential left. In the last year the stock has soared from $17 to over $35. Notably the fund’s biggest investor is top-ranked Kolokotrones who has a MU position of $1.76 billion, followed by David Tepper with a $385 million position.

Shares rose after top FBN Securities analyst Shebly Seyrafi initiated coverage on the stock in mid-September with a buy rating and confident $45 price target (35% upside from current share price). According to Seyrafi, Micron is set to benefit as pricing volatility as its key DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) market stabilizes.

“Consolidation in the DRAM market leading to better pricing dynamics, smaller peak-to- trough declines, and improving margins for the major players,” says Seyrafi. “Note that the top three players (Korean leaders Samsung and SK Hynix along with Micron) grew their combined share from below 60% in 2007 to 95.0% in CQ2 2017.”

4. Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE):

This leading online travel company is the name behind multiple websites including Trivago and Airbnb rival HomeAway, which Expedia picked up for $3.9 billion in 2015. Hedge funds have a ‘Very Positive’ sentiment on the stock. Indeed, TipRanks’ No 1 hedge fund manager, Brad Gerstner of the $2.4 billion Altimeter fund, has EXPE as his second biggest holding. Since June 2013, Gerstner has recorded an incredible portfolio gain of 261%.

Five-star RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney also has high hopes for EXPE’s HomeAway: “We expect the company will continue driving execution across its core set of global assets while investing aggressively in tech and marketing to scale up HomeAway. We see a tremendous growth runway for HomeAway in particular, as the company grows its footprint domestically and pushes into International markets next year.”

Mahaney has a buy rating and $175 price target on the stock- suggesting upside of just over 20%. This falls slightly above the $174 average analyst price target. In the last three months, 16 analysts have published buy ratings on the stock vs one lone bear.

5. Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF):

This consumer financial services company has seen a dramatic increase in hedge fund interest. In the last quarter, funds upped their stock holdings by 25.2 million shares. Hedge fund guru Warren Buffett initiated a new position in Synchrony- which was interpreted by the market as a significant vote of confidence in SYF’s outlook. The Oracle of Omaha, as Buffett is known, added $520 million of Synchrony shares to his portfolio.

We can also see how the stock has a Moderate Buy analyst consensus rating, but if we limit the ratings to only those from the best-performing analysts the consensus shifts to Strong Buy. These top analysts believe the stock has considerable upside of 27% from the current share price over the next 12 months.

Disclaimer: TipRanks is an independent cloud based service that measures and ranks digitally published financial advice. TipRanks' natural language processing (NLP) algorithms aggregate and ...

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