Rite Aid Is Up 40% In The Past Month; Here's Who Could Be Winning

Rite Aid Corporation RAD is having a great month, returning almost 40 percent in the past month. The company recently revealed its same-store sales increased by 5.1 percent year-over-year in the month of December, comfortably beating analyst estimates.

If the latest 13F data still holds, several hedge funds and institutions could be very happy with this stock.

Gotham Asset Management

The fund managed by Joel Greenblatt must be quite pleased with Rite Aid’s recent performance, as it last disclosed (by the end of the third quarter of 2014) ownership of 12.78 million shares -- worth more than $60 million.

Related Link: 2 Wall St. Firms Weigh In On Rite Aid

Gotham quadrupled its exposure to the company over the third quarter, when the stock traded below current prices. Unless it sold its stake over the fourth quarter, when the prices were close to 52-week lows, it should have perceived some upside.

Visium Asset Management

Jacob Gottlieb’s fund also seemed quite bullish on Rite Aid by the end of the third quarter, since it disclosed increasing its stake by 764 percent to 8.66 million shares. This position was worth almost $42 million by the time of the disclosure, but has now escalated to over $66 million.

What's Next?

Some analysts seem to believe this is not the end of the road for Rite Aid’s stock.

Credit Suisse recently issued an Outperform rating, accompanied by a $9 price target. JP Morgan also maintains an Overweight rating with a $9 target.

The stock is up nearly 1 percent during Thursday's trading.