Do Hedge Funds Love KBR, Inc. (KBR)?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers have jumped into KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR) headfirst. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, created the most valuable position in KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR). The fund reportedly had $14.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also made a $10.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new KBR investors: Mitch Cantor’s Mountain Lake Investment Management, Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR). These stocks are Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN), Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC), Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR), and Universal Forest Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:UFPI). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to KBR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $179 million. That figure was $472 million in KBR’s case. Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard WNR might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: none.