Hedge Funds Are Crazy About Wilshire Bancorp Inc (WIBC)

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, assembled the largest position in Wilshire Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:WIBC). Fisher Asset Management had $2.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also made a $1.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new WIBC investors: Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Wilshire Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:WIBC). We will take a look at National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCMI), Acceleron Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:XLRN), Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT), and Golub Capital BDC Inc (NASDAQ:GBDC). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble WIBC’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $87 million, compared to $44 million in WIBC’s case. National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCMI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Golub Capital BDC Inc (NASDAQ:GBDC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Wilshire Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:WIBC) 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 NCMI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.