Do Hedge Funds Love UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH)?

Seeing as UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) has faced declining sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that slashed their positions entirely in the third quarter. Intriguingly, Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management dumped the biggest investment of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, worth about $28.9 million in stock. Michael A. Price and Amos Meron’s fund, Empyrean Capital Partners, also dropped its stock, about $24.4 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 10 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH). We will take a look at Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:TSM), CVS Caremark Corporation (NYSE:CVS), Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN), and Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO). This group of stocks’ market values resemble UNH’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 71 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $6,398 million. That figure was $2,824 million in UNH’s case. Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:TSM) is the least popular one with only 32 bullish hedge fund positions. UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) 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 AGN might be a better candidate to consider a long position.