Hedge Funds Are Dumping Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B)

Seeing as Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.B) has faced bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of money managers that slashed their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Israel Englander’s Millennium Management sold off the biggest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $46.9 million in stock, and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $20.9 million worth of shares. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.B). We will take a look at Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), and General Electric Company (NYSE:GE). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to BRK-B’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 74 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $10.9 billion. That figure was $19.4 billion in BRK.B’s case. Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) is the most popular stock in this table, while Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) limps behind with only 61 bullish hedge fund positions. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.B) 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 WFC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.