Do Hedge Funds Love Rent-A-Center Inc (RCII)?

Since Rent-A-Center Inc (NASDAQ:RCII) has experienced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who were dropping their entire stakes in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group said goodbye to the biggest position of all the investors studied by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $4.2 million in call options and about $0.5 million worth of RCII shares.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Rent-A-Center Inc (NASDAQ:RCII) but similarly valued. These stocks are SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN), Triangle Capital Corporation (NYSE:TCAP), United Financial Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:UBNK), and AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV). This group of stocks’ market values resemble RCII’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $32 million. That figure was $74 million in RCII’s case. SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Rent-A-Center Inc (NASDAQ:RCII) 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 SCLN might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.