Hedge Funds Are Dumping Loews Corporation (L)

Seeing as Loews Corporation (NYSE:L) has witnessed falling interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few hedge funds who were dropping their entire stakes in the third quarter. Interestingly, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management cut the largest investment of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at about $7.7 million in stock, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $2.6 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 7 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Loews Corporation (NYSE:L) but similarly valued. These stocks are Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY), Agrium Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AGU), Fidelity National Financial Inc (NYSE:FNF), and FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT). This group of stocks’ market values match L’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 36.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2197 million. That figure was $1010 million in L’s case. FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:FLT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Agrium Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AGU) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Loews Corporation (NYSE:L) is even less popular than AGU. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.