Do Hedge Funds Love Markel Corporation (MKL)?

Judging by the fact that Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL) has witnessed falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there were a few hedgies who were dropping their entire stakes in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management cut the largest stake of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $3.1 million in stock. Matthew Hulsizer’s fund, PEAK6 Capital Management, also said goodbye to its call options, about $1 million worth.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL). We will take a look at SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM), FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT), Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD), and Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to MKL’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.43 billion. That figure was $900 million in MKL’s case. FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard FLT might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None