A victory for Ken Fisher?

The stock picks of the billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Fisher have a tendency to outperform the market. During Q2, Fisher Asset Management increased its stake in NIKE, Inc. to a total of 3.7 million shares. At the beginning of the quarter, the hedge fund owned only 50k shares of Nike, so it could be said that Fisher’s team has made quite the confident stock pick.

Renaissance Technologies was also interested in Nike during Q2. It owned 1.6 million shares for the end of June 2012. The success of RT gave its founder Jim Simons the opportunity to build a net worth of 11 billion dollars.

Nike’s revenue was up 16 per cent over the last fiscal year and it has grown a GAGR of 7 per cent. The company’s net income was also up with its posting a 4 per cent growth rate for May 2011. Earnings per share were up 8 per cent. EPS has grown at 6 per cent annual rate for the last 4 fiscal years, whereas the net income has grown at a 4 per cent rate. The board of Nike has recently approved a repurchasing program of 8 billion dollars which is expected to last about 4 years.

NIKE, Inc. is able to charge a price premium since it’s an owner of a global brand. It may be expected that the company is exposed to a poor macro environment, but that is not the case at all: the stock’s beta is 0.9 and it tends to fall or rise about in line with the market. It is up 71 per cent over the last 5 years.