Do Hedge Funds Love Level 3 Communications, Inc. (LVLT)?

Seeing as Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE:LVLT) has experienced falling interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there exists a select few money managers that slashed their full holdings in the third quarter. Interestingly, Josh Resnick’s Jericho Capital Asset Management cut the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $76.8 million in stock, and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $42.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 7 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE:LVLT). We will take a look at Telefonica Brasil SA (ADR) (NYSE:VIV), AEGON N.V. (ADR) (NYSE:AEG), Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB), and Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to LVLT’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $670 million. That figure was $3181 million in LVLT’s case. Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand AEGON N.V. (ADR) (NYSE:AEG) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE:LVLT) 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 EW might be a better candidate to consider a long position.